I like writing. I do a lot of writing over a course of a day. Staring with morning pages, reading notes, programming (very similar to writing), journaling…etc. But still nothing to show for it.

I used to have a blog (2010) at codecompiler.wordpress.com, my first blog using wordpress which garnered me emails from random strangers. Some are asking for help on how to solve a certain problem. Some are about gratitude on how it helped them. That feeling of helping others through my writing felt good, but I’ve never started with that specific purpose, it’s a side effect.

And then something happened, all of a sudden I gave up my writing, deleted my blog and all the articles. I wish it hadn’t ended that way, but that’s past and can’t do anything about it.

I don’t remember exactly why I did that, but one of the reasons I could remember is comparing myself with others in the space. Once I started getting some views on my posts, I made it a numbers game. Instead of writing about what I found interesting or what I’ve learned recently, I started thinking about what kind of complex or trending topic should I write about to get more views. This way of thinking has lead me to forever procrastinate on my next post because I used to think it was not perfect (nothing is ever going to be perfect and never realised that then). And finally, I gave up as I couldn’t think of any crazy interesting topics that I wanted to write about. Caring too much about audience has ruined my one good habit of writing. It felt bad looking at that blog with nothing but some old posts and nothing interesting. Even the ones that I initially published which gathered audience felt like fluke. Embarassed about the blog, ended up deleting it, and disappeared. I should have never done that.

And then there are multiple times I tried to restart the process of writing again. I buy a domain, build a blog using whatever fancy framework is trending, write a “hello world” blog post and then disappear again. Rather than writing what I feel like, I started getting into the rabbit holes of thinking of the next fancy post which will gain me the stardom.

You must have guessed what happened after then. Yes. I’ve never published any. Fear of getting judged. What if my colleagues and friends think I’m dumb because I’m still writing only some beginner level posts that anyone can write about instead of some advanced computer science topics, that I should be able to because of my experience?. And, who reads these anyways. Especially in the age of AI, may be no one does (except these AI bots). Should I even bother writing then?

YES.

Everyone is busy in their own shit. No one really cares.

If someone does really care, that’s a happy side effect. If someone really judges me as beginner for writing beginner level posts, I’ll consider that as positive as I’m being a mentor to upcoming engineers. If someone really judges my post as not good enough or not clear and gives me feedback, I’ll take that feedback and will improve myself. If someone just complains, I’ll ignore them.

This is a message to myself to remind me why I want to keep writing instead of listening to all the second voices in my head which are more dangerous than imaginary external voices.

The curse is broken by finally publishing another piece.