Blogging and the Paralysis of Choice | Hacker News Reader

Blogging and the Paralysis of Choice

mikeperham.com

27 pointsmperham12 comments

Or, you know, don't say anything. If nothing comes to mind, then maybe there is nothing important to say.

Starting is much much much harder than continuing. If you've made the decision to write, it's better to post something, anything, to get on a roll. For example, today I posted a book review[1] just to keep on a writing stretch. It's not my finest work, but it's enough to keep me going.

[1]: http://bugsplat.info/2013-05-25-book-review-tubes-a-journey-...

Why do you have to keep going?

I don't have to keep going, I want to keep going. Writing is something that I've decided to try to get better at and every article I write gets me incrementally better.

Re: siblings and increasing writing skill: there are too many blogs. Try writing in private and for literary (i.e. non-tech) audiences. You'll have better chances of focusing on the actual writing, you'll be able to branch out, you might get feedback on your writing.

To get better.

Somehow three years ago I convinced myself I should write a book until I went back into a library and saw all the shit that is written. It makes you think should we all voice our opinions, and the answer is yes and sadely no. What I wish is there was a better way of bubbling the relevant content to the top, ideally you would want a group of open-minded individuals who were willing to dig deeply into all the content created daily and push the best to the top, but that does not work, or at least it does not scale. Some people who have great things to say do not even bother because they fear they will not be heard in the middle of all the noise going around. Others who say a lot should be filtered out completely from the internet.

Edit: Speaking of bubbling. Think about the great work and time it took to create the Harvard Classics, and the Greatest Books of Western Civilization. Dozens of knowledgeable and well read individuals sat down for months and made these lists, in the end we were left with great works that we can spend our time on without the fear of wasting it. And the quality of the reads shows the work done was worth it.

Absolutely agreed. Often I go to my local library just to pick up a random book in the IT section that sounds interesting to me.

I feel sorry for the trees when I see thousands upon thousands of pages of empty burbling. There is so much garbage I have not found anything worthwhile yet.

This is why I don't have a blog, I have nothing worthwhile to say.

Do you talk? Why would you have something worthwhile to speak to someone but not to write?

No, not really. I answer when asked something, I ask someone specific when I have a question but that's it. I have far more questions than answers.

What this article doesn't address is the arbitrariness of the choice. If you choose arbitrarily, you simply replace one problem (paralysis), with another - doubt. Doubt that this worthwhile.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com