So. I’ve been constipated, metaphorically.
Haven’t been publishing anything for the past….. 6 months? And it has been causing low-key stress and anxiety, gnawing away.
I want to get things out there. I want to ship.
It’s not that I haven’t been writing or researching or thinking about anything. It’s just that I haven’t published any of them.
I get streams of thoughts and ideas all the time. And I keep track of them, link them, organise them, try and make sense of them, every day,
Hoping my brain will process these in the background and suddenly conjure a brilliant angle and the right set of words.
That eureka moment.
But the fastest way to reach thought coherence and get a set of articulate words crafted is by sitting down and face the words.
I know that.
Yet I don’t do.
I want to produce tight piece of post. Yet many times when I start writing, the words start snowballing moving towards an evergreen essay or comprehensive mega posts on certain topics.
By then I know I better chunk it to more digestible pieces, to attack it more systematically, and decide what level of abstraction I need to extrapolate to. Playing with tradeoffs.
To step back and clarify to myself again: what was the one thing I am trying to say here?
Sometimes I have no idea what the main point is.
But I know if I don’t start typing, I will never find out.
That muscle of sheperding one’s thoughts to make one point and one point only. I know I need to flex and train that.
Today I am giving myself the permission to share unfinished thoughts and publish half-baked pieces.
Standalone thoughts. Single datapoints. Simple anecdotes.
Does not need to be part of a larger argument. Not to make a broader point. Not yet part of some framework, tactics, or utility.
Thoughts that are OK as it is, just being there, without serving any grand purpose.
// Does not need to be useful or interesting all the time.
Publish insignificant thoughts in good enough words.
People will be able to understand what I am saying. Either right now, or eventually.
I have been paralysed by the desire to only show the shiny final product. A formidable set of words that take the readers on a journey.
Writing is rewriting. I know that.
Yet I don’t do.
So because consistency is really one of my superpower. I guess I need to suck it up and start laying brick by boring brick in public.
Also published on Medium.
