On Opinions

My flow of opinion is closely guarded by two entities: a wholly internal, phantom currency of self-truth and a more general optimization problem against external {social, employment, etc.} pressures. Somewhere in the middle of what do I believe in and does HR have to get involved is usually where I find that I, and most people, express themselves publicly.

All of this to say, anything that I’m putting out to an unlimited and unknown set of people is going to be a thrice-distilled version of my internal experience. If even real-time conversations have background processing and inference on an audience vs openness decision tree, something created with (hopefully) more deliberation and (at least one round of) editing stands no chance at raw authenticity.

Of course no one consumes any form of media expecting real spontaneity of expression. I can’t promise that my thoughts here will be the same level of unadulterated madness that my friends get to experience but I will always try to express a close truth to what I feel internally, mostly by leaving all of the non-analytical posts at some degree of stream-of-consciousness.

and with random interjections >:)

Many thoughts will be partially developed fledglings—often immature, definitely first-draft material—meant to capture a feeling. Think scribbled-on whiteboard instead of chiseled out marble. The flip side of this is that posts will also be revised and republished, oft stealthily and without much indication. I can’t come in guns blazing on every belief without reserving the right to update based on new information.

and of course the irony is not lost on me that creating a disclaimer like this as my first post is fundamentally me cowering behind a shield of “haha my opinions are going to change and what I’ve written may or may not be my opinion by the time you read it so don’t pin anything on me”

it be what it be

On Blogging

In an ideal world, I wouldn’t feel the need to publish any of this. In fact, if you’re reading this and you aren’t me (my own questions of self notwithstanding), why? Even if you are me, why?

to make the numbers in the Fun page go up hehe

I think I enjoy writing. At the very least, I admire people who can take their most intimate perspectives and express them to others in a way that does not come off cliched, stale, or worst of all, pedantic. Realistically, the ability to do this is critical in any art form be it music, painting, dance, etc. Even more realistically, I am inept at any and all of the above so letters, grouped in patterns and formatted in rows, are all I have. At the same time, I have never been able to let my pieces out into the wild. Anything I’ve written of my own life has felt too intimate for others and any fiction I dabbled in just never seemed complete.

Since I know re-reading even the most perfect paragraph will make me conjure phantom issues, these posts have been written with the mantra write and scroll, with no purposeful re-reading before the final edit.

I’m also writing this in an IDE without any speeeeling or grammar checks so fingers crossed

Beyond these supposed goals, I generally feel that creating a blog is quite like spinning up a podcast: an exercise in the ego beyond anything else. Secretly, of course my hubris tells me others should read my thoughts. The singular brain cell on duty right now craves recognition and validation for the thoughts it’s composing.

Trivially, though, the smattering of posts put up inconsistently will at least provide a record of (some of) my existence. That’s good enough for now.

On Feedback

Someday I’ll fashion a fine little feature so my plethora of fanatic fans can fervently furnish fawning feedback on the blog.

I’d like to thank the thesaurus for writing my college apps and the sentence above

For now though, keep it to yourself.