Reflections

This is a two-part series. This post is part one, the penultimate post of the year. Part 2 will come next week, and it'll be the last post of 2022. I started this blog in the spring of this year and I've written and published a post every week since. I'm immensely grateful to everyone who has read, commented, shared, and/or has been a part of the blog in some way or another. Now, I intend to take some well-earned rest over the holidays, and if all goes to plan, normal programming will resume on the first Sunday after New Year's Day. For now though, as we wrap up 2022, I'd love to look back and reflect on how this series (and the year in general) has gone. Without much ado, here are some of the things I've learnt…

Length and format 

When it comes to writing weekly blog posts like this one, I’ve found that there's a sweet spot in terms of length. Some of the earlier posts I wrote ran close to 5000 words. I absolutely enjoyed writing those posts, and I even surprised myself in writing them, but I received valuable feedback from my friends and family that those posts weren't the easiest to read. The truth is, in a counterintuitive way, those long posts were easier for me to write than some of the shorter ones that came later. The longer posts took me places I never planned to go, and it was easier to give in and follow those trains of thought, as opposed to making a plan and sticking to the writing plot. Perhaps the reason I refrained from writing the shorter posts was that shorter posts require several iterations and revisions. 

What happens is you write a bunch of things, like a brain dump, more like a brain vomit in some cases, and that becomes draft zero. You then stare at the words on screen or paper and you synthesise them, looking for themes. You then have a go at rejigging the content like a literary jigsaw puzzle, and then you condense the sections of this puzzle as it starts to come together so that you can write or rewrite them in a more concise way. And then you revise some more. You dot the Is and cross the Ts, and you check that the narrative still makes sense in spite of the rejigging, condensation, and revision. I could go on, but you get the idea by now. It's no wonder that Blaise Pascal once quipped in his Lettres Provinciales that he would have written a shorter letter, but he did not have the time. 

My main takeaway on this point is that I'd love to do the work to ensure that the length is just right for the content and the reader. I write the things I write because I don't have a choice. Writing helps me think, it helps me feel better and make sense of things I'd otherwise struggle with in the world. But I also want people to read the things I put out in the public domain, so I'm once again making a public commitment to write in the most accessible format I can manage.

Content and structure 

The blog has taken me to many places I never thought I could go. I wrote about incentives, comparison, originality, politics, and more. When I started the blog in the spring, I wasn't sure I had it in me to show up every week with a new post, and yet, by some miracle, I've managed to do just that. Maybe it's knowing in the back of my mind that I made a public commitment to put out weekly posts, maybe I’ve been driven by a feeling of accountability to you, my dear reader, maybe it was something else. Whatever it was, it drove me to continue to show up week in week out, even, or especially when I was terrified that I’d run out of topics to write about. I’m pleased to say that it hasn’t happened yet. 

I've found that the posts I enjoyed writing about the most were the ones that hit the closest to home, and by that, I mean the ones where I could pluck examples from my daily life. There were things I wrote about in passing, examples I shared in larger write-ups without much thought, and those went on to ignite some scintillating conversations with friends, family and readers offline. I found this fascinating, and in a sense, it encouraged me to share more of those types of examples. It encouraged me to be more vulnerable in my write-ups because it brought more substance to the blog posts. And yet, somewhere in the back of my mind, the fear of over-sharing or giving too much away was (and still is) entrenched. 

I'm all too familiar with the perils of sharing one's personal life in the digital space, especially for people of ethnic minorities and other marginalised groups. I find myself thinking twice about each new post, photo, or video that I put out in the world. I find myself checking and rechecking whether there's anything that could be used by malevolent actors. The flip side of this is I'm also cognisant of my unconscious biases, and it is important for me to avoid writing anything that could come across as offensive to marginalised groups. This is something I'm still learning and will forever be learning, as we all should.

Key takeaways

Writing this blog has helped to reinforce my identity as a writer, artist, and creative individual. It is one of the best professional and creative decisions I made this year, and for that I'm so thankful. 

Writing more has encouraged me to read more, and to engage with a wide range of topics, ranging from creativity to psychology, philosophy and even politics. I've broadened my mind this year like never before, and I marvel at just now much knowledge is out there for the taking, how much I'm yet to learn, how much is available at my fingertips, waiting for me to reach out and grab it. Each new day I wake up looking forward to the podcasts I'll get to engage with, the books, articles, and essays I'll get to read, and the music I'll get to listen to. For all these, I'm thankful.

Similarly, having written a weekly post for the better part of the year, I'm now finally starting to understand the advice from the likes of James Clear, that it is better to focus on the verb than the noun. In other words, writers write, singers sing, painters paint, and sculptures sculpt. Rather than striving for some arbitrary goal of becoming a writer, I've simply embraced the practice of imbibing writing into my daily life, and these weekly blog posts have been the quintessential vehicle for me to share my writing. 

I still feel like an impostor, of course, and yet I don't think that'll change. What has changed is that now, I can say with just a little tinge of confidence that I'm a writer. And I know that it can only get better from here. Earlier this year I shared the news that I was going to be a published author. The first of my books will be available in bookstores in 2023, so watch this space. In the meantime, I'll keep doing what I'm doing.