I’m stressed because tomorrow I’m taking a plane, it’s 00:00 and I haven’t started packing. Maybe I should start packing now, I don’t know, I’m very tired. I would be going to sleep now if it wasn’t because I really want to write.
I’ve also been anxious today about a couple of other things. On the one hand, I was planning on taking my guitar back in my upcoming trip to Edinburgh (long story), however I realised recently that that may not be as straightforward as I thought because on my way back I’m taking a plane to Birmingham (i know, wtf, who takes a plane to Birmingham in his way from Edinburgh to London???).
On the other hand, I’ve had a blockage in my kitchen drain for the last month. I’ve been trying different methods to unblock it, mostly chemicals, but none of them seem to work. Furthermore, the washing machine drain is connected to the kitchen drain, and the couple of times that I have tried to use the washing machine I have ended up with the machine full of left over water and the kitchen drain working worse than before. Yesterday I had a breakthrough, because suddenly I managed to summon up the courage to open the pipes and look at the blockage myself. I found a blockage, it wasn’t as bad as I thought, I cleaned it and I put it back together today. And this morning I found out that the drain was still blocked.
In the evening, I opened the pipes again, even more than before, I found new blockages, I ensured all the distinct parts of the pipes seemed to work well, and I put them all back together, and low and behold, the drain is still blocked. It is working better than before, much better, and who knows, maybe it never worked great but now I’m just paying more attention to it… But I don’t know, it’s so frustrating. I was really excited yesterday when I thought this may have been finally fixed, I really felt like a weight had been lifted off my shoulders. And now I’m more aware than ever of the weight that I’m feeling.
As I said, I’m leaving tomorrow, so I’ll leave this to future Cesar to figure out. If he comes back and the pipes still feel disappointing, I guess I’ll end up calling a plumber, and if not, all good.
When I thought it was finally over I also felt very free, like finally I had energy to work on things I had been putting off, like starting this project. Now things are not fixed, but I’m still motivated to work on this project, to continue writing, about anything, even if it’s just about my pipes and my flights. Just starting has given me a lot of pride and energy, I’m excited to keep going, I’m excited to get to 100 posts and figure out how that feels. So, even if my pipes are still blocked, I think it’s very interesting how that moment of respite was all I needed to unlock enough energy to start, to unblock myself, and now the energy of starting just needs to be enough to write one more post. Hopefully, each post unlocks enough energy/pride/excitement/motivation to just write the next post, all the way to 100.
Speaking of which, let’s look back at my anxieties from yesterday, and try to answer them and define better the project:
what if I get bored of blog posts? what if writing isn’t really a medium that excites me that much? I’m afraid of failing, of giving up halfway through.
Giving up halfway through… wouldn’t be all that bad. After all, this, more than anything, is an experiment. If writing doesn’t end up being that exciting, or if I get bored of blog posts, I think it’s best to find out as soon as possible. Right now, I have this fantasy in my head that I could be a blogger, a journalist, a writer. But… maybe that’s not right. It takes a lot of effort to get myself to write after all. I think the most important thing right now is to ensure I have enough experience to understand what I like and what I don’t like about writing.
what if my blog posts become repetitive? what if I end up just writing about writing all the time?
I think this is very unlikely to happen, it is 100 posts after all. I think I will end up finding topics that excite me to write about, if I really focus on getting to 100. And if I end up being repetitive but I’m enjoying myself, then I think that would be something very interesting to discover and look into. I think writing about writing is definitely something I come back to a lot, something that really interests me, but I don’t think it’s the only thing and I don’t think it’s bad if it’s only one thing that excites me. However, I’m clearly very afraid of it being the only thing that excites me, and I think that is something to explore in of itself. In any case, I think the only way to find out is to keep writing.
what if the only thing I have to write about are my feelings and I don’t want to share things that are that intimate?
Then don’t share them. I’m not sure if they’ll count for the challenge if I don’t share them, but I think that if I feel like writing about intimate things then I can keep that aside from the project. What if it’s the only thing I have? Well, that is similar to the previous question. I think that if the only thing I can ever write about that interests me is things that I don’t want share, then writing in public isn’t for me, and as mentioned before, that is something I’d like to find out and understand. So I guess part of the challenge here is finding the intersection between the topics I find interesting enough to write about and the topics I feel comfortable discussing in public, if it exists.
what if I can’t come up with things to write about?
I doubt this will happen, because I already have a long list of ideas, but I understand the worry that maybe I won’t ever feel like actually writing about those ideas. If that’s the case, I think we go back to the goal here is finding the intersection between the topics I find interesting and the topics I feel comfortable discussing in public, and whether the intersection exists. If I can’t come up with things to write about, that is also an answer. But also, I can always just talk about my current feelings or my day (like I did above), or ask ChatGPT to suggest topics for me.
what if I miss a day? or two? or a whole week?
No problem at all. I think the ideal here would be to complete the 100 posts in 100 days. However, I also think that is very ambitious and very unlikely to happen. I think it may be interesting to see how my estimate of how long it will take changes over time. As of right now, while 100 days seems ambitious, I’d say the reasonable target is about 130 days.
what if I don’t have time to write every day?
Same as before, I don’t need to write every day. However, it would be good to build a habit of writing, to find out where it fits in my routine.
what if writing in a blog that no one really reads isn’t public enough?
I think, right now, writing somewhere anyone can see, even if they don’t actually see it, is already public enough for me. I think I’m more likely to push myself too hard than not hard enough, so I’m going to aim for baby steps. I can always decide to advertise these more via twitter halfway through, or start new projects that are more public later on, but for now I think it’s okay if this stays as just a series of blog posts, kind of hidden in my blog.
This entry has already reached 1300 words, I think it is becoming too long and I’m tired and want to go to sleep, so I think I will leave it here for now. I think answering these questions has already created some implicit definitions for the project, but if need be I can write a more explicit manifesto in another entry. For now, this will be okay.
I really missed myself in long form writing. I’m excited to get back to it and to try to develop a habit to do it often and in public.