Getting out there

“My storage system comprises of me putting stuff on the internet and if it’s worth storing somebody else will do it for me.” - Linus Torvalds, the inventor of Linux.

I’ve been journalling about every single day of my life in some form or another since september 2024 when I joined university, and I have no idea why. I’ve considered several times stopping, because I don’t understand why I do it and it takes up SO much time. I would spend hours writing about some days and the best days would be too busy to record properly, it’d probably be a bad read, But that’s the thing, I’ve never reread it and I think over time I’ve just switched to using discussion time with people as a way to reflect.

Earlier this year I tried video format for the whole thing and that worked really nicely for capturing emotion, arguably too well because I’d rewatch it and end up empathising with past me so much the storyline of my first video is definitely overweighted. BUT the video medium has its shortfalls too, particularly that it’s more of a task to do, so I ended up bulking up each day so much I think I’m a month behind again.

I think it’s redundant to mention that I’d like to try and make writing short bits for this site my new replacement daily habit, and because it’s my own practice I get to go through all the same shortfalls that all amateur writers do, and YOU my audience of 0 get to enjoy :)

I think my only two disclaimers are that for now this is intended to be a personal experiment, for my personal gain alone. That being said let me know if I can improve it such that it can benefit you and I’d love to consider it. But for now, it will likely have spelling errors without a proper editor to warn me, enormous wondering streams of consciousness that feel like the hidden chains of reasoning LLM’s would try and hide, and probably unmeditated thoughts far more refined across the internet. But hey, maybe organic slop will be the next big thing!

As a kid writing felt like this thing that non-nerds would do, like it wasn’t for me, whilst I simultaneously wrote my own poems and would dream creative dreams. I’m very grateful to have been reintroduced to the notion of writing as a dedicated practice by my inspiring friends at the Idealists Collective. Hopefully I can learn more about it here through practice.

Anyways let’s briefly summarise my day, just to fill my old itch that “it must be done” and then I should sleep, I went to bed at 9 today to try and fix my sleep schedule before exams and here we are procrastinating in all the most interesting ways. OH that’s where my wondering mind was meant to be going all along. I’ve decided on top of everything else to make things public because of what I heard Linus say today, I’m constantly inspired by people like him (and several others who may or may not be weirded out by how cool I find them) who just do stuff, and I’m directly keen to figure out what it is that I’m yet to do to feel like I’m doing in the ways they are. I’m sure I’ll circle this thought plenty of times..

I have about 11 days until the first of my final exams today, and I felt like I got nothing done, I hope I’m wrong here but that’s not really too important now it’s done. I’ve shifted my priorities to routine and health now because how well slept and fed I am on the exam day is the most important thing, and I have a suspicion that focusing on this all will actually make me more productive. I’m under the impression I get disproportionately tired reading and writing, maybe dyslexia (undiagnosed) because I still can’t write essays for more than an hour and a half, causing marked grades of 30-40%, far less than a pass - which is frustrating because if I could do the whole paper that’d be 60-80% which is insanely good! And it’s not time constraints, it’s fatigue. Hopefully some sleep today and my newfound calm that I’m trying hard enough and there’s no need for stress (I want to find a way to eliminate the stress entirely because I have a suspicion it’s this alone that makes me tired.) will up productivity. I’ve done work so much more intense than this, I don’t want this to get the better of me.

Interesting, there’s something quite scary about putting how I feel about work online knowing anyone could read it, including a potential future employer. Hopefully any panopticon effect from this improves my life, not the other way around!

Thanks for reading guys! Goodnight :)