First Entry

Dear Future Self,

You’re probably thinking why I am trying to start another hobby when none of the other ones have held up to the test of time so far.

There’s a multitude of reasons, but I won’t try to hold myself down to any of them. After trying and “failing” so many times, I don’t want to introduce another tightrope to walk on, which I attach my identity to, and then be disappointed if I fall off of it another time (which I expect I will out of my humanity).

I’ve been realizing that it is impossible to be truly successful at something if you don’t know your own reasons for doing it. Maybe you’re doing it just because it seems like it would benefit you in the long run. Or you will be recognized and praised for it. Someone else marketed it to you really well. So well that you see lots of potential for yourself in it. But because it doesn’t wholly align with your personal vision, your interest in it fizzles out faster.

It’s true, because of human nature you’re bound to get burnt out at some point doing the same thing over and over again. But I think that if you’re doing it just because it seems like the right thing to do, it may not last that long.

So I will try to state my own reasons. I’ll write to capture my current feelings and thoughts about whatever I’m doing or coming across. With the amount of thinking I do, especially in the last few months, someone like me could benefit from writing it all out to gain clarity. It’s like my thought process is like a stream, but it’s been clogged up by many unsolved dilemmas or too many thoughts for it to flow freely and move forward.

Secondly, I just want this to be an imperfect experiment. I’ve held myself back from so many things for so long. I’d love to see what happens if I let the content out instead of spending so much time being paralyzed about perfecting it in all the right ways before I publish it.

Which brings me to my third point. I’d like to try and externalize my own thoughts without the unnecessary interference with ideas developed by others. Although some popular ideas are valuable on their own, I have felt they sometimes cloud my own judgement and development of my own ideas by becoming noise. A simple example is of me seeing what study technique works for most people, then trying to implement it and failing at it, which naturally leads to disappointment and dejection.

To continue the metaphor, I’d like to experiment and find my own method of studying, which I expect would lead to higher chances of success based on the personalization aspect. But in order to get there, I need to somehow lower the sound of other ideas in my head, give myself a period of ideological isolation, until I have developed sufficient solidity in my own ground to stand on.

To do this, and to also try and curb the anxiety brought by imposter syndrome and perfectionism, I’d like to write at least 30, and maybe even 100 posts as freely, and imperfectly as I can without letting anyone know that I am writing. Not my closest friends, or anyone else. I’d like to gain experience in making many mistakes and understanding that there is nothing to be feared about that, before allowing myself to weigh in another person’s judgement. This also includes only trying to find and write something because you think your audience will like it, ultimately suppressing your own inner voice.

Now, this first post seems kind of unorganized and a bit too frank. But because I’d like to discover parts of my self that I haven’t been able to with thinking a lot in the safe space of my own mind, I’d like to keep it this way and not write or not write anything because I think it’s the right thing to do so, rather than what I actually want to.

In short, I’d like to curb the factors that seem to have repressed some of my own thoughts, feelings, and opinions, and try to bring the latter to light.

Now I’m going to resist the urge to cut any of this out, or adjust by heavy editing, and just press publish. Here it goes:

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