Why you should write
preetamnath.com
preetamnath.com
I have to say though that simply doodling on a Synth and enjoying the sounds, playing an instrument without trying to make a song, can be very relaxing and satisfying. Especially when you are a beginner at it. Otherwise you might be trying too hard to create something meaningful, destroying the pleasure in the process.
So my advice would be not to attempt to create, but to simply indulge in the act and enjoy the flow.
When I’m out of my writing habit, sitting down and getting something out is a huge chore. My brain constantly wants to pick up my phone, check my email, read the news, etc. But once I’ve spent a few days limiting that impulse, I feel like the chains are off and I’m able to just sit down and write.
Last year I participated in Nanowrimo, and it was insane how quickly the words came after the first five days. I highly recommend it to anyone who has felt similar friction in their creative practice.
Let people relax. Stop appropriating every good thing and turning it into another competition.
This reminds me of a lovely article I've read recently: an app can be a home-cooked meal. In other words, you can create small scale, short-lived things for private consumption. It's a lot more relaxing.
I second a recommendation to that article: https://www.robinsloan.com/notes/home-cooked-app/
> Q. How to actually get stuff done?
> A. Give yourself permission to produce shit.
This should be shown in a poster in my room!
There is one musician on YT who said that he is simply doodling away on his groovebox frequently and that more than 90 percent of the results are shitty. But from those ideas that are somewhat decent he develops his music.
I'm not against these. After all, it's why most folks get into whatever they are doing. We all need to keep a roof over our heads, and food on the table. We also want to feel good about what we do. It's just not why I do what I do.
I do what I do, directly as a love of the craft, and all my work is an act of creation.
I get up early every morning, and walk a couple of miles. It's usually dark, when I do, and I use the time to sort through what I'll be doing that day. A lot of that "sorting" is a moral and motivational inventory. I figure out what I want to do, and also why I want to do it. If I can't come up with a compelling why, then I have to reconsider the what.
I do enjoy writing. I've done a lot of it[0], and will do more. I don't have a schedule for writing prose. I tend to churn something out once a month or so, but I will sometimes do a couple of articles in fairly quick succession.
I do them for myself. It's nice if people read them, but they really help me to clarify what and why I do, as well as how. Like everything else I do, I apply a lot of polish and refinement; even if I am the only person that will ever read it. One of my habits, is that everything I do, I do as "ship." When even my casual throwaway experiments consist of a level of quality not seen in many large-scale industrial apps, then the stuff I'm serious about, is likely to be fairly robust.
The one daily thing that I like to do, is write code every day. Not just LeetCode (in fact, I never practice that stuff). I like to write "keeper" code, every day, 366 days a year. Of course, I'm not able to actually get that done every day, but I get most days done. My GH Activity Graph is pretty much solid green[1].
I've been at this game a while, and a lot of what I do is almost "instinctual." Basically, "muscle memory." When I'm working on a a project, I don't whip out my GoF Design Patterns book, and figure out which of the Basic Patterns I'll be using, or my copy of Rapid Development, to set out a project plan; I just start writing an OBSERVER or ADAPTER, without bothering to call it that. In fact, the only reason that I tend to use industry jargon, is when I'm trying to leave a trail of breadcrumbs for maintainers. Otherwise, I often make up my own terminology.
I'm a bit "on the spectrum," and tend to live in my own world. It can be a massively productive world, but is insular.
When I write -especially about how I do stuff, it often forces me to get out of "muscle memory," and into the same world everyone else lives in. I have to explain what I do to an audience that is larger than just myself.
So, it's great if people like what I write, but it really doesn't matter that much (at, least, to me).
It takes a beginner significantly more energy to enjoy an activity, but once you are proficient in the basics (like keyboard playing for improvisation) the mental barrier is much lower, and you are more likely to just jump into it and enjoy yourself.
My father liked badminton, but was never good, and rarely played. Then, at some point in his busy life, he scheduled a lesson once a week, for two months.
It made such a dramatic change; he started to play weekly, even after the lesson ended, and each time with rejoicing and cheerfulness.
I've seen the same pattern on myself and my friends as well, in both arts and sports. So, I'd say if you think there's something you might enjoy doing often, schedule some time to study it (again, doesn't have to be long). Get better and get happier.
My biggest problem is either not being able to tell if I have actually made any progress, or have made too little progress over too long a period of time. It seems to be accepted that if you put in a lot of effort then you'll get better, but they never mention how much better. I don't see the point in getting to point X in 10 years when being smarter about my resources would have gotten me to point X in 3 years, if getting there faster means getting to the point where I actually start enjoying it faster. Time is precious and non-renewable. Some forms of practice are simply better than others, and I believe that I can't always figure them out entirely alone.
Result was that I stopped those activities soon, because they were draining. Meanwhile, people who just unseriously dabbled in them, tender to learn and get habits. They were not drained by them and had fun.
I just find that I cannot enjoy something if I have too much doubts. I may enjoy doing it once or twice, but if I'm constantly caught in failure/exhaustion, it's no longer fun.
I used to be into composing and improvisation, but each time I attempt at it, the result was to "meh". I walked the keyboard but knew nowhere to go. The fun was basically an initial passion plus a little curiosity, which in me, tends to die quickly if no fuel is supplied.
Meanwhile, my friend who actually studied Jazz, can sit in front of a piano and just play, fully enjoying every second of it, while entertaining everyone else. Comparing with my randomly walking on the keyboard, it's a higher level of fun as he attempts to weave the harmonies and melodies, and it's more lasting and more complex.
Again, it's a quite personal thing, as I also have a friend who literally doesn't do anything new. He neither dabbles nor learn seriously; has no hobbies apart from having dinner with friends; but still, he seems to be really happy.
And that change of expectations made difference in long term - in two years span I improved much more on things I had low expectations at and kept fun and thus kept doing bit by bit.
If you have played a couple sports well, then it's easy to pickup more.
If you can play a musical instrument well, it's easer to translate the learning to others.
If you can cook one cuisine well, then it's easier to start cooking others, as the fundamentals are there.
That said, I agree with you, if you want to pickup something that you feel you don't have a talent for, then you need to hire a good coach and take lessons. And yes, the initial hump is frustrating, most people give up, but if you can push yourself over it, you'll begin to enjoy it.
I see many writing because of "others are writing " often end up with not so good work(articles/blogs).
Briefly to summarize, Write only if you have something shareable information or you love writing. Don't write because someone told you that Writing is Very good idea. Then you end up with something people won't like to read.
Actually by "if you love writing" , i meant writers who are fond of writing stories/other entertainment. It could also mean some writers who love writing tech doc/daily notes.
What I criticizing were writers who write spam,skiddie hack articles, false news,low quality spam,etc. If you don't know about what you are writing,then you are wrong.
Writing has far-reaching effects on how you think and communicate. Lots of people believe their thoughts are well organized and that they’re capable of communicating them. But then they sit down to write those thoughts out and they can’t get anywhere.
Writing, as a practice, helps you begin to make sense of all the disjointed ideas in your head. It helps you make connections between things you otherwise may not have noticed. And it helps you improve those ideas and connections because you can review and edit them later.
Think of it like exercising: just because you life weights, doesn’t mean you have to start wearing sleeveless t-shirts.
Writing is very good mental exercise. I totally agree.
Writing can be a skill you hone for your own pleasure, and a useful way to structure your thoughts or capture your current state of mind.
I believe this indicates a problem in my line of thinking: desperation to affect the world or get someone to care. My belief is that if I keep everything I do to myself, then I have not "affected the world" in any way, and this is not good. My accomplishments will die with me and nobody will ever know what kind of a person I was, and all my life boiled down to was essentially finding a way to be independent and survive and then participate in solitary hedonism for the rest of it. For whatever reason I find this a suboptimal use of my own life. I am in a position in the midst of failed startups and college applications and poverty to have enough time and capital to work on my ideas, to do nearly anything, and I can squander it in any number of ways. I lose the game every day knowing this and only remembering it if someone publishes a life advice article but ignoring it the rest of the time.
It feels as if my worth is tied to other people irrespective of what I tell myself otherwise, because of my desperation to have someone to confide in, but not in a way that is effortless. I keep believing I have to spend a lot of effort working on skills to deserve the kind of friends I want to know that have also worked very hard to hone skills. I don't really understand why, except maybe I don't know anyone that fits into my perfectly idealized view of the world. My family wasn't pushing me to overachieve either. My standards for people and things are just too high.
Do I enjoy creating things? Not necessarily, but not creating enough things that pass my arbitrary filter before I die is supposedly worse. But this is only a vague ideal and not a concrete goal. It just looms over me constantly, as if I should have a constant reason to criticize the way I am living as "not what I really want." But I still believe the vague goal if I end up writing it out concretely. I don't want it to go away, or I will miss wanting, even mildly, to become "that kind of person."
I understand this is discouraging me and I have to work on it somehow. Maybe getting the recognition from someone that I can accomplish things I set my mind to and that there is a path to what I want to do would clear out most of the issue. (But I don't mean people telling me them over Internet messages or therapy sessions just because I asked. It doesn't seem to work. I can tell all of these things to myself, but for some reason I can't personally believe them until someone wiser than me can confide in me enough to recognize and confirm them through what I actually do, not what I say.)
You can make software like you bake cookies, for the enjoyment of a select few. You can enjoy writing code in obscurity like you can enjoy looking at a landscape without sharing it on social media.
The point of creating is not the result, but the process itself. It teaches you new things, and gives you a better appreciation of the world around you. Gardening turned my local forests into living, breathing museums. It allowed me to look deep beneath the surface, to literally see the forest for the trees. If I wanted pretty flowers, I'd buy plastic ones.
Again and again I am finding myself after a day with something that is not ready. All I can do is scrap it for now and turn to something small. Like 674 bytes small [1] but I think it is beautiful.
Why is that a problem?
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/10569.On_Writing
One of the things he mentions in his book is to be judicious in editing your own texts, removing any words that do not add to the actual message that you're trying to get across. For instance, in the last sentence, I ought to have removed the word 'actual'.
I think some of this advice could probably apply to this article as well.
So many advice.
I like the one: write from start to finish then let it rest for 6 weeks and edit out 10% of everything you wrote.
Classic book. Read it twice already.
It's good to be reminded that maybe there is more to life than being really really really ridiculously productive.
Where am I going with the above: By writing, we find out if our thoughts are muffled or not. This means that writing is like a mirror to our thoughts.
Now there is a difference between writing for personal use and writing for the public. I think everyone should write for personal use. Examples of writing for personal use are
1. Journalling.
2. Self Reflection.
3. Project analysis.
When it comes to writing for public consumption, it's a different thing all together. You would want to have a topic or interest area you want to write about. It also takes much more time than you can imagine.
I started writing recently for the public and the process has been rewarding. I have learnt alot about myself. You can check out my newsletter at https://leveragethoughts.substack.com/
People always ask questions like "How are you thoughts if you are dead/blind?" I'm neither of this and most of my thoughts don't look like images, text, or sound. They are their own convulted thing, a thought.
Talking and writing about them helps me to "linearize" them and to find the holes.
Especially technical writing helps to get things in check. Did I miss some steps? Can I reproduce my conclusion from my text alone, without any extra input?
Write something, try to explain things, it can help you to understand better; even if you think you already know them well.
You don't even need to publish your stuff, though others people input can help greatly too, even if the just ask questions because they don't know the topic as well as you.
Didn't know this was a thing :D
It's not a plug to hop you to my site. I sincerely appreciate your feedback. I see a lot of benefits, like I improved my ability to express my views concisely. I am now a lot better at summarising things and packing so much of value in short sentences. I would highly recommend building a habit, like reading and writing.
I tend to write while I’m doing anything as loose notes which I can then turn into something after the fact. So I get the benefit of what I was thinking at the time and then years later can get back into that mindset.
It works for me, and is relatively low effort. What I have found though is that it helps job wise because I stand out just a little, which is more important than ever as I get older.
I find pros and cons to all of the above, and ultimately have a hard time getting into the flow. I used to write all of the time on a laptop before I started working in software.
Lately I've slacked a bit and so a couple days ago I decided to simply write letters to myself. This is very, very easy. I don't have to worry about how good it is, I'm only writing to myself. I also put a note in my calendar to go back and read my letters about once a month.
Sometimes I'll expand letters into blog posts or small books. I've published several small books in the past, the most recent being my introduction to computer programming for absolute beginners, which is called "Splash of Code by Joel Dare".
I wrote with a typewriter for years before computers and I can't really handwrite for an extended period any longer (or read what I've written half the time).
I will also outline on paper and index cards. Index cards are great for outlining and can be spread around the desk easily.
Trying to hedge against all these outcomes results in an unhealthy high level of expectation that my writings be timeless pieces of novel and truth that it cripples my writing to the point that I stopped writing a long time ago. Any tips to overcome this?
That was after I gave up on writing a blog about it.
I read some of it a bit later. I couldn't make it through a single blog article, but poured through the journal with a wide grin. It was enjoyable precisely because it was so raw. It perfectly captured everything: the fear, the excitement, the anger, the embarrassment, the lust, the boredom. That was the story, not the diluted version I felt comfortable sharing. It felt much more real with the bad parts left in.
Write for yourself, as a record. Be angry, be lewd, be irrational, but be honest.
Rather than boasting a large email list, the friend signs off every email with the line, "sent to 27 subscribers." You have no idea who those 26 other people are, but you know you were hand-picked. This is not a list you sign up for, but it's one where you are likely to pay attention.
Audience matters a lot.
For every post I wrote, I personally learn a lot, specially edge cases. That alone is worth it for me the process.
I disagree that you have to put content out. I suppose the author is from South Asia, and there is a competition there that seemingly small things matter more. Bring in Hacktoberfest PR counts, GSoC gaming, and of course a stellar Medium.com content for the full picture.
Philosophy is a field where reputable, long-tenured experts routinely get it wrong. Many philosophers stake their entire career on a mistake.
Being the expert in your field, even having 30+ years of experience, does not make you a philosopher. A beginner in philosophy has at least an undergraduate degree and 5-10 additional years of moderate study.
Stick to what you know, and you will always be able to translate your experience into valuable insights for others.
Applying a philosophical concept in the context of your life, for example, is a fine thing to write about.
Like cycling or any other activity, there are levels to philosophy. But that doesn't mean you should enter the Tour de France because you're interested in mathematical Platonism.
It's quite dense, not a passive read.
[0] https://www.amazon.com.au/Classical-Rhetoric-Modern-Student-...
If I may, RWE's 'Self-Reliance' too mentions something on these lines.
Don't think anyone will ever read it, but if I ever need to do this again, I will use the article I wrote as a howto reminder.
TFA isn’t saying everyone should write. Rather:
> With this blog post, I’m pulling at the strings that connect people who want to create stuff, have the ability to create stuff, and want to get started but haven’t yet. More specifically, my blog might appeal to people who have the ability and desire to write.
Don't care if its banging bits of wood together, drawing/painting, writing, singing or gardening.
Do something that is creative and not work. do it for yourself. It helps keep your brain and self in balance.