10 Posts in 10 Days
Late November 2023, I revamp my personal website, jshamsul.com. I moved from the Ruby-based Middleman static-site generator framework to a full-stack React meta-framework, Next.js. I deployed the new website with a single post titled, “What is Next for jshamsul.com”, with all the pun intended.
In that very first post, I mentioned my aspiration for writing more, especially in long-form format. By the end of 2023, around the time when people usually write down their new year’s resolutions, I created a page on Notion (this is before I had moved back to using Obsidian), titled “100 things I want to do in 2024”. It was inspired from the Anime series I was watching at that time, “Zom 100: Bucket List of the Dead”. One of the items I wrote on the list was — “to write more”.
That was a bad example of goal setting on my end. What does “to write more” mean? What does “to write” imply? And what does “more” means? A good goal should be something that is specific, quantifiable, and achievable. The problem with just stating “to write more” is that it is indistinct, subjective, and there is no clear definition of what it means to achieved it.
There were actually two things that troubled me as I reviewed the state of my “100 things I want to do in 2024” list. First, the list does not have 100 things listed, in-fact it is actually not even close to 50 things. Perhaps 100 is a bit too much. Second, of course, was the item “to write more”. There is nothing much I can do with the first one. I could add a bit more things to accomplish in the next 6 months or so and try to make it a 100, but I think it is better if I focus on what's currently pending. For the second one — “to write more” — is perhaps something I can improve on.
Half of 2024 has already passed, and yet I’ve not written a single new post since the original November 2023 post. It is not too late to start, and I’m planing to start with 10 posts, 10 well-thought-out and well-researched long form essays, one each day. This is to kick-start a daily writing regimen that I am hoping will stick. I’ve thought about at first making it 30 posts for 30 days, to round it up making it a month of daily writing, but I don’t think I will be able to commit to that. Another writing goal that I’ve set for myself, is to eventually publish a book. Something that I’ve always wanted to do. A self-publish e-book would be a good start.
Actually, I did write a bit more this year, more than ever before. I’ve been cultivating my personal digital garden, tucked privately in my Obsidian vault. I had nuked my previous Obsidian setup and started a new one with a minimalistic approach. Furthermore, I had adopted Tiago Forte’s CODE and PARA method, but had tweaked it to fit my liking, and had made it my own.
Tweet me on Twitter (now known as X) @jibone, if you are interested in knowing more about my Obsidian setup and how I’m reading and taking notes these days. Perhaps I’ll make it as one of the 10 posts.
Writing privately is fine, but if I want to improve and grow, I have to practice in public, I have to publish it online. I would rather not be that person who constantly imagines and brainstorm ideas by themselves, worked on it in private and convinced themselves that what they are doing will be spectacular. Always waiting for the right moment to show to the world the outstanding product that they had concocted. Then, and only then, everyone will see how brilliant they are. It might be the case that it will happen that way, that the thing they have been working for happens to be great, or it might not, people may have found their work to be mediocre. In that later case, it would have been beneficial to have gotten the feedback earlier. They could course correct or work on something else.
But the worst thing of all, the thing that many of us working in private will succumb to, is that we will never leave the “waiting” stage. Either our work is stuck there, or we give up and move on. Our work never got to see the light of day, forever tucked within our private vault.
Sure, practicing in public has its known benefits, and the obvious one is the ability to gather feedback quicker. Valuable data points to pounder upon. However, it comes with its set of perils. The immediacy of feedback induces a high amount of anxiety. Stage-fright. There is the chance of being proven wrong, although this isn’t really a bad thing, being proven wrong is a great learning opportunity, only that is, if your ego let it be a learning opportunity. There is also this fear of being deemed a pompous Mr. know-it-all, a show-off. I struggle with these thoughts all the time when I want to share something online. Something substantial, not memes and shitposts.
Recently, I stumbled onto this quote, and it gives me the vocation to proceed,
A ship docked in the harbour is safe, but that is not what ships are built for.
My ideas, thoughts, and opinions are safe in my private vault, but that is not what they are for. Ideas need to be tested for it to expand. Thoughts and opinions need to be challenged for it to grow. And so here I am starting with 10 well-thought-out long-form essays posted in 10 days. I hope to continue past the 10 days mark, making it a habit to write and put something worthwhile out.
