I write: in my journal every night, chronicling my frustrations at myself and working through the mess in my head.
I write: in my notebook that I carry with me, scribbles of snippets from podcasts and books and articles.
I write: in Notion, in chat messages, in emails, in documentations that I am sure no one reads but it is still good to keep a second brain for the team at work (or so I tell myself for comfort).
I write: fiction, tucked away in documents not many people have seen.
And so – am I a writer?
I started my blog journey at the very tippy end of 2019, with some ups and plenty of downs.
It was a slow start, with the pandemic roaring through without warning. Then, I tried to tackle consistency in 2021 and 2022, writing every single week, no matter the topic or the banality.
I succeeded, mostly, but writing fell to the wayside when I started preparing for the GMAT in 2023. Writing started to feel like a chore, and so I stopped doing it.
That is, on hindsight, one of the bigger oops on my personal growth journey.
Even in the age of AI and the threat of elimination with our core stack of skills, I believe writing still remains something that would differentiate the thinkers from the followers.
At the very least, the act of writing helps me to synthesize my own thoughts and understanding of myself, the world, and the society we live in.
(And boy, do we live in a society.)
For four and a half years, this site lived on Wordpress, bloated with features as they came. I could never get my theme to work the way I wanted; half-baked widgets installed to try things, and hacks in custom css to make it passable.
So I decided: I wanted to build my own digital garden.
From the perspective of the concept:
- It should evolve as I do
- I get to learn in public
- Ideas get to pollinate and cross-cultivate (maybe I am taking the garden analogy to far)
For the tech stack:
- It has to be lightweight
- Updating needs to be easy
Above all, I want to have fun writing in public again.
All of that to say: this site is now powered by Hugo, I had a steeper-than-expected learning curve with git, and my html/css skills are rusty but not completely down.
It also means that I am manually migrating entries over, but this gives me the chance to prune my thinking, and reflect on my past writing.
So – please expect breakages in links, and things not working (yet! consider this an MVP) as I figure this out. I’m excited to be excited about writing again.