Pretending someone will read this

I decided to start writing online this year. 

Well, actually it was last year, I bought my website domain for 240 kr/24 dollars on New years eve. I think this is something I've been wanting to try for the longest time, not writing per se but maybe just creating something on a topic that interests me. My goal isn't to have millions of readers, but maybe some people can find what I create and have it help them in some way or other. If not, at least it will help me find a way to express my ideas and to collect and distill the things I learn, and learn new skills in the process. 

These past few weeks, or rather it might just be this week, I've spent time on building websites, trying different website builders and playing around with them to create something that looked good, and that I felt okay with sharing with the world. I don't regret doing this, it was fun to see my options and learn how it works. I also practiced putting parts of myself, both pictures and details about who I am, on the sites I created. I think this was a good test. Obviously, no one will see it. But it still felt like putting parts of myself out there and I realised that it released a sort of block that I had in my brain. It felt easier to share myself the more I practiced. So, I practiced on three different website builders, building 'about me' pages and writing what my site would be about which made me ponder those things myself. 

'What am I about?' 

'How do I describe myself?' 

'What will my content be about?' 

I'm not going to pretend I've fully answered those questions but it felt good to try. I'm about improving as a person and I'm interested in topics like health, wealth, productivity, exercise and improving within those. Just today I also realised that I think I love to teach things I know. Something I thought everyone enjoyed to some extent but that may not be the case. Anyway, this post is a test. It is a test for me to see if I can write something mildly interesting. It is also a test to see if maybe I can write something valuable to someone other than myself. My website, or this page, will not be about me sharing my infinite wisdom to a chosen few. I'll be honest, I'm not that wise, yet. But I try. And I think that's true for a lot of people in their late teens and 20s, and later in life as well. We try to be better and learn things worth knowing to improve a little every day, while trying to enjoy the process. 

There's a quote by Charlie Chaplin:

“That’s all any of us are: amateurs. We don’t live long enough to be anything else.”

And that really resonated with me. When I have thought about sharing things and giving 'advice' online based on things I've learned myself, I've always felt a certain sense of 'Who am I to say this? I'm not an expert.' But maybe I don't have to be. Maybe we don't need to be experts to be helpful. To provide value. 

Another quote by C.S. Lewis reinforced this belief for me:

“The fellow-pupil can help more than the master because he knows less. The difficulty we want him to explain is one he has recently met. The expert met it so long ago he has forgotten.”

So maybe, we as fellow pupils are in a better position than experts to teach to people in similar situations to our own. If you think back to two years ago, two months ago or maybe even yesterday you've probably learned something. You've probably felt embarrassed about the way your past self handled or behaved in past situations, and you learned from that. If your past self would have benefited from what you know now, then maybe somebody else can too. I've always tried to teach my brother things. From trying to force him to read books, because I loved reading books and knew it was good for a variety of reasons, to getting him in the gym because I loved going to the gym and knew it was a good thing. He didn't always listen but when he finally did, he benefited from it. And I did too, I felt a satisfaction in teaching what I know to another. Maybe it's just a sort of hubris in that I know something and get to tell someone what I know because they need that information. But I think it's something more. So, maybe I can teach someone something, maybe someone can learn something from me, get any sort of value from something I've written. That would be great. If not, as previously stated, it will probably help me to articulate my thoughts. 

I got inspired to do this by an Ali Abdaal video.

It’s called 'How writing online made me a millionaire'. Watch it, if you haven't yet. He basically describes starting his blog as a gateway drug into creating and eventually starting his YouTube channel that grew to become extremely successful. He also refers to the book 'Show your work' by Austin Kleon. The book argues, as the title suggests, that you should share your work online with others. I finished the book this week and highly recommend it. In short you should 'Show your work' to: 

1. Connect with other people who love the same thing 

2. You get instant feedback on your work, which makes you better 

3. You're easier to connect with when you show who you are, your process and how you think 

Some great quotes from the book: 

"Having your work hated by certain people is a badge of honor."

"Amateurs might lack formal training, but they’re all lifelong learners, and they make a point of learning in the open, so that others can learn from their failures and successes."

"Share what you love, and the people who love the same things will find you."

"If you want people to know about what you do and the things you care about, you have to share."

"Don’t think of your website as a self-promotion machine, think of it as a self-invention machine. Online, you can become the person you really want to be."

I will probably make a full post just about the book in the future but that's largely what it is about. Hopefully you find it interesting. 

I've always loved to write. 

When I was little I loved to read. Later I started trying to write my own stories. I wrote a continuation of Harry Potter when I was in like third grade or something like that. It's now lost to the void due to my school deleting the google drive account, which is why I'm also not quite sure exactly when this was. Or how good my writing was for that matter, although everyone that read it was overly impressed and said that it was on a way higher level than a third grader (not to brag haha). If I don't reach any other goals in my life, at least I can lean back on that. Anyway, the point is that writing has always felt good to me. In school it felt good to write, even though the subject matter didn't always excite me fully the creative process of writing something and the words spinning in your mind as you try to produce something coherent and thoughtful while trying to hold on to some sort of essay structure (not my strongest area, don't know if you've noticed) always felt good. Even now as I write this I'm not sure how much time has elapsed since I started. I don't care. I feel fully immersed and I dare say I've tapped in to some sort of flow which is a good thing, it means you're at least interested in what you're doing. So because of that I think it’s good that I’m trying this.

So, now I've at least started. This post is a start. It felt more or less like I'm rambling but hopefully it turned out alright. The building of websites was a procrastination of sorts, I don't regret it, but it's time to get to work, to see if this is something for me. I hope it is. If not, at least I gave it a try.