More Thoughts, Less Posts

Thoughts are fleeting ideas on a topic. They do not receive the same depth of attention as posts.

Over the years, the amount of writing I do on this blog (or whatever you call it) has gone down drastically. Even though I have a long list of ideas and notes for posts, I have been finding it more and more difficult to start writing. I put much of that down to not having time, as it feels like a valid excuse. Recently, though, I have been writing a lot privately, and the more I wrote, the more I realised time wasn’t what was getting in my way.

In the early days of this blog, I wrote a lot more about my everyday experiences and general feelings. But as I grew older and my career grew, they no longer seemed appropriate. So I made them private and only kept the posts related to coding or work. All the personal posts felt cringy and embarrassing. Deep down, what it made me feel was extremely vulnerable. To expose that part of me to the world like that. What if someone from work read that stuff? What if a hiring manager at a place I was interviewing for read that stuff? I would imagine all the ways my own words could be used against me.

As cliched as it sounds, what has been getting in my way of writing more, is myself. Too much pressure to say the right thing. Too much pressure thinking about what the faceless others would think about it. Too much pressure to not look stupid. Too much pressure to look professional. Too much pressure thinking about my “personal brand”(eye-roll).

To take that pressure off myself, I am going to start framing some of my writing as thoughts as opposed to posts, separating the two concepts to give myself more freedom. So this site becomes more of an expression of myself rather than a crafted version of what I want the world to see. Posts are for things I want to put more profound thought and time into. But thoughts give me permission to just put stuff out into the world.

The more I have been working through my shit over the last six months, the more I realise there is no escaping the real me. No matter how fast or far I run, I will always be there. No matter how hard I try to hide, I will always be found. The more I try and deny myself, the more I will be haunted by it. Trying to escape from myself only leaves me feeling hollow inside. All that true self wants is to express itself, and that expression is key to me feeling somewhat alive.

They say when writing, to keep your audience in mind. But as I’ve been discovering while getting back into writing music, I’m only writing for myself. Maybe my words or music will connect with others along the way. And whether that happens here, on Spotify, on YouTube, or on some other yet-to-be-named website, I invite you, the reader, the listener, the watcher, to join me on my journey.

Don’t worry, I’m not bringing back the cringy and embarrassing stuff. I’m just going to try bringing more of myself. Whatever that means.