Well this certainly feels like a stereotypical first blog post.

tl;dr I want to write blog posts to “get over my communication/presentation perfectionism” and “practice expressing myself”. I’m writing for myself, but if you happen to be reading this…cool.

Why

I could give a bunch of justifications for wanting to write. Some of them could even be grandiose like “in this age of easily generated slop, it feels especially important etc. &tc”. I could believe I have something important to share with the world.

My goals are simpler.

Exposure therapy

This is the Big One. I want to become more comfortable with putting my ideas and, frankly, myself out there. I’ve noticed a recurring theme across many areas of my life that I seem to have a problem with being seen. A problem with presenting myself and/or my ideas unless I’m absolutely sure they’ll be received well. A problem with fearing looking foolish? This leads me to agonize for hours about docs, posts, messages, and other communications up to and including talking to people. I suppose it could also be conceptualized as “worrying about presenting myself in the most optimal way”. This is present in both my work and personal lives.

I suppose it’s some cursed form of social anxiety and perfectionism that can lead to the worst procrastination in the world. Obviously putting blogposts out, even if no one ever reads them is a great step to take to get more used to this. Provided that I don’t get mired in the weeds trying to perfect the blog post. I think I’ve rewritten the first couple paragraphs here seven or eight times already.

I figure I write some blogposts, try not to obsess too hard about the quality of them, and get some very low stakes practice in not caring as much. Chances are no one reads this, but I still have the pressure of the thought that someone might read this. Which seems good enough for now.

Practice communicating

I feel I have more trouble than I should communicating my ideas in words. It will be good to give myself an additional outlet for practice. I think in a lot of systems and abstractions and what I can only describe as flow diagrams? These do not translate neatly into communicable language. Practicing writing outside of work with not only technical topics should help. I also just want to write better prose out of the gate. Sometimes I feel my composition when writing is …lacking… Definitely sometimes too verbose and flowery or hedgy or all of the above.

Writing blogposts offers me a good outlet for practicing mid-length writing. Too much of my writing is either quick blurbs/chat messages/a paragraph or two thing. Occasionally I write a long technical design doc. Missing from my usual writing outlets are both not-strictly-technical content and mid-length content. A blog can help bridge that gap.

Leaving breadcrumbs

I read a piece a while back from Simon Sarris that promoted the idea of living in public online and “leaving breadcrumbs” that allow you to be found, and, most importantly, seen. This is the lesser goal compared to the other two, as it being effective for connection building would require people to actually find and read my blogposts. I currently have no intention of actively promoting my work. Obviously this idea of leaving breadcrumbs that allow me to be seen and found (and judged) plays nice with my goal of exposure therapy.

Aside from the therapy, I also like the idea of putting some stuff out there under my real name. It’s a topic for another post but I recently killed my long term screen name in a bid to be a more integrated and complete person with time and energy for the real me. Putting breadcrumbs out helps me establish the “real me” as a presence on the internet where there was previously only a not-quite-me identity, a part I played if you will.

Reflections

  • I started this post with no idea of what I was going to write and just wrote, but maybe in the future it would behoove me to outline first
    • On the other hand, like when I’m writing software, putting something down and the pruning/deleting/moving around/rewriting gave me some idea of the shape and meaning I wanted to communicate in a way that just outlining could never.
  • After I noted “I think I’ve rewritten the first couple paragraphs here seven or eight times already”, I reminded myself that part of the idea here was to be less worried about it being perfect. I managed to hit some kind of flow and the rest of the post came pretty stream of consciousness (barring editing)
  • I am plagued by the thought this post is kind of cringe. I need to kill the part that cringes, which is the point. This is honestly some journal-ass content but part of the point is to put this out in public where someone might read it so it cannot just be a journal. Oh well. Guess I’ll have to live with being cringe. Or maybe I’ll just think of it as being sincere (would DFW be proud)?

Cheers, I’m going to write.