After finishing up my draft on Fallow Season, I went for a walk and started thinking about what I actually want to get out of this blog. Old habits die hard, I guess.

That first article was a bit of a spur-of-the-moment release - a grand announcement to mark the end of one chapter and the start of the next. It felt cathartic. But after writing it, I found myself asking: what now? What is this blog actually for, and do I even want to keep going with it?

So that led me to writing this article to answer these questions. But I’m going to take you there in a bit of a roundabout way.

A Tale of Two Artists

There is this parable that I’ve heard before. It feels so mythological that I’m not even sure if it really happened. I’m sure in some capacity it did, but perhaps the tale has been told and retold so many times that the fact and fiction can no longer be separated.

There was this university that wanted to run an experiment. They took some ceramic art students and separated them into two groups. The first group was told that they would be graded on the quantity of the work they produced. They would receive their grade by producing a piece of work each week: no art, no grade. The second group was told that they would be graded on the quality of the work they produced. They had only one submission, right at the end of their semester, and it would represent the entirety of their grade.

The second group spent the semester fussing over theory - they read about what made good art, learnt about the best firing techniques, and drafted and drafted about what their final piece of work would look like. The first group didn’t: they simply got to work churning out new pieces of art each week.

At the end of the experiment, it was the quantity students who produced the best work. Not the quality students.

I love this tale. Intuitively, I’m sure we all know this. We know that you can’t become a great tennis player by watching and learning from the pros. At some point you’ve just got to jump on the court and start hitting balls.

What This Blog Is (and Isn’t)

That leads me to writing about what this blog actually is about.

In its essence, it isn’t really about anything. Rather, I am using it as an exercise to push myself into the first group of quantity and out of my comfort zone. I won’t be fussing about how well the article reads, or flows, or even if it makes “sense” in the grander picture of the blog. Rather, I am just going to write.

So that leads me to what I plan to write about.

I plan to write personal articles in here. I want to write about what’s on my mind, what’s happening in the world, reflections I’ve had during my walks, and musings about the future. Some of these will be related to my work, but many of them will not.

I’m also planning on writing about my “work”. I will write about technologies, packages, frameworks, and designs I find in my travels. Again, some of these will be related to my work but not all. One week I might be writing about AI agents, and the next about publishing smart contracts to the Ethereum blockchain.

In all cases I’m aiming for short, snappy articles. I am thinking 400-800 words. Especially for technical articles. But I won’t hold myself to account. I’m just going to write as much or as little as I think I need to get a point across.

With regards to quality - I’m not really planning on polishing anything I write. Hell, I’m not sure if I plan to reread them afterwards for clarity and flow. I’m just going to write and ship it.

Building Without A Plan

Expanding upon this last point, I am writing without a plan.

My life, and my career by extension, has been defined by planning. It’s what has made me successful. I do all the planning and thinking for my clients so they can focus on the “doing” and making something valuable.

This blog is an exercise in unlearning this skill. One of my greatest learnings from my latest period of entrepreneurship is that everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth. I think I would have done much better if I stopped over-planning and instead just did things. So this blog will be a space for me to unlearn the habit of over-optimisation and just get into the habit of making stuff.

There will be no plan, no structure, no order, and no stakes. Instead, it will focus on creativity, momentum, and presence over perfection.

Actually, There Will Be Some Order

Okay so, yes, there will be no plan but I do actually promise some order (even if that does contradict my last paragraph).

Although I won’t use any order, I will make sure that you still get some. I plan to tag and categorise all of my articles. That way you won’t be forced to wade through 10 articles about me thinking about the future to get to the article where I talk about what makes Polars so great.

I’ll likely tag to separate on technology vs. personal articles. I’ll probably go a step further too and tag on topics like AI, web development, blockchain, etc. But again no promises: this blog is much of an adventure for me as it is for you.

Concluding Thoughts

This blog may not have a singular point, nor may I ever be able to summarise it in one sentence. But that’s the point.

It’s a space for me to experiment and play around with my mind. It’s a space for me to disregard the need to be optimal and productive, and rather just build things for the sake of building things.