July 10, 2019
This blog is an experiment in accountability.
At any given moment, we all have two selves. There is the self that everyone sees: our public persona. And there is our private, inner conception of ourselves. When we tell the truth to others, these selves stay close together. But when we don’t speak our mind, lie, or withhold ourselves from the world, a gap can open up. Our selves split apart. We have to keep track of the parallel threads of thought. Living this double life can cause anxiety. This blog is an attempt to be honest with the world, and thus be honest with myself.
The first principle is that you must not fool yourself, and you are the easiest person to fool. - Richard Feynman.
This blog is an experiment in thinking.
I will publish some thoughts and ideas, and they will be accountable to you, the reader. As a result I’ll find much of what I write is rubbish. While finding out I’m wrong is irritating, it is also interesting. I don’t like being wrong for a second more than I have to be. The scrutiny will test and improve my thinking. Hopefully, my mistakes will pave the road towards better writing and better ideas.
This blog is an experiment in writing.
When I began at university, I wanted to be a writer. I wrote for university magazines and tabloids. Writing for these publications quickly became tiresome, and I gave it up. I found it hard to write articles I wasn’t that interested in. Although I was supposed to be writing for readers, my real audience was my editors. I found myself adopting a contrived narrative voice, because it’s what I thought my editors expected of me. This voice was a fake persona, which warped my true thoughts about the topics in my articles. This blog is different. I have no editor. I am only going to publish things I am interested in writing about. To begin with, I will not have any deadlines or publication timelines. The writing will take as long as it takes. By writing for myself, I hope to quiet those other voices, and find my own perspective. I don’t know whether I still want to be a writer today. But I want to be able to think. And writing is the most reliable way I know to work out what I think about things.