One of the few things that consulting life has taught me is to set expectations well, right from the start. Following a blog / granting inbox access to a stranger is not easy. Spending 10-15 mins every week to read someone’s blog is an investment that’s close to ~9 hrs a year (a full working day)1. Before you chose to read someone’s work regularly and repeatedly, you must know what’s in it for you.
Most online bloggers don’t specifically highlight this. They usually have ‘About Me/About This’ pages and leave it at that (either because they’re already well established / they just don’t feel the need). Hence here is a quick introduction of what this blog will be about and how this might help you! (Also read “Scope of this Blog”)
Reasons Why People Write:
I think the reasons why many people write could be as myriad as the types of flora and fauna on this earth. I know bloggers who:
- Just want to express themselves
- Share their passion/expertise in a subject
- To help themselves / to help others
- To make money
- To build a personal brand
- To reach out to people beyond friends and family
- A combination of all the above
George Orwell, the widely popular author of Animal Farm, highlighted 4 key reasons as to why he or any other writer writes, namely, Sheer Egoism, Aesthetic Enthusiasm, Historical Impulse, and Political Purpose. He wrote this in 1946 and it’s quite surprising how true these are even in the present world.
Analogous to the ways in which the world has changed (Ex: Internet, Social Media, Technology) and not changed (Ex: Fascism, The Power/Influence of Books, Marriage as an Institution) in these last 75 years, these reasons too have stayed the same and transformed to different measures depending on the writers of today.
For example, Mark Manson writes self-help that doesn’t suck (he has stopped doing so now), Shane Parrish writes to make readers more intelligent than they were before, and David Perrell writes to help others start writing. And there are some others like Paul Graham / Tim Ferris who write about everything that piques their curiosity or interest and that which they think will be useful or add value to their readers. Closer home, authors like Preeti Shenoy started blogging as a coping mechanism after a personal tragedy and Visakan (visakanv.com) wants to build a social graph/community of friendly, ambitious nerds through his work.
Reasons Why I Write:
The reason I am writing this blog now are quite straightforward to me (and I am convinced that these will evolve):
- Sharing My Curiosities: For a long time, I have had this gnawing pull to climb over rooftops (both offline and online) and share what I have learnt / stuff that has helped me so that others don’t have to reinvent the wheel and can spend their time and effort on more productive pursuits of happiness and meaning in their own lives
- Consumer -> Creator: Having been a consumer for the past 31 years of my existence, I want to create something (in this case my blog) to experience the feeling of what it means to be a creator. Some of the most influential people in my life are writers and other creators and hence I want to see how my perspectives and life evolve as I make this transition
- Equal Beneficiaries: Writing probably is one of the few endeavors which would serve both me and my reader in equal measure.
- Writing for Me – The only thing I have done consistently all my life so far is to read, read and read. Writing therefore is the easiest creative pursuit I can attempt to be good at given my time and financial obligations. My influencers have successfully convinced me that writing would help me express myself, think better, and lead a better life. I started journaling since Dec 2020 and I know how much just writing for myself has helped me. I have a strong conviction that writing for a broad audience would benefit me in new and unknown ways.
- Writing for My Reader – Human beings, especially millennials today can get too engrossed and busy with their commitments and social media distractions. Finding meaning/happiness in our own lives, coping with the pleasures and struggles of day to day living and making the world a better place are really hard & wicked problems2. Google doesn’t have user manuals for designing a purposeful life, planning our careers and optimizing our days for meaning and happiness. On the other hand, what we all have are opportunities, brain plasticity and a long history (of people who have lived before us). This blog will distill my learnings of 31 years. These may or might not help you, but I will try my best to ensure that your time is well spent here.
- Writing for Us: Man is a social animal. Finding like minded humans (those who share your struggles, those who have travelled the same paths as you have in the past and those who want the same things as you want) is a blessing. Interesting humans across the globe have influenced me beyond measure, and have made me a better human being. I wish this blog helps me in finding such folks and learning their stories in the hope that we will all be better off by just coming together and having a good conversation
Notes:
- Extrapolating daily / weekly time spent into annual time spent is a practice that I cultivated after reading Ashley Whillans’ beautiful book “Time Smart” – a must read book for millennials making time vs money decisions
- Wicked Problems – Daniel Kahneman(Thinking Fast and Slow), David Epstein (Range)
