more than one person has told me i should write down my thoughts and post them somewhere. then, i happened to read "how to do great work" by paul graham and he said the same thing. so here i am. hello world.

i have this thing about being perceived. people that know me know that these days, "i'm not on social media", as in, i don't scroll on the apps where most people are social, and i don't post either. a lot of it is for privacy reasons — big tech taking my data, in my business, bots scraping my posts to feed AI, blah blah. but also, i used to care a lot about people's opinions, and i couldn't shake the feeling that posting on instagram is like getting onstage and putting my whole life on display. whenever i did decide to post, i would think way too much about it and almost dread the attention.

kinda like i did with this blog thing. who would read this? who am i talking to? what if the theoretical audience doesn't like what i have to say? do i really have anything to say?

apparently, i do; i have learned that i can be a certified yapper. i have a lot of thoughts and observations and soapboxes, and my partner gets an earful whether they like it or not. they also encouraged this blog thing, perhaps so i can yap to someone else.

i could set high brow goals about things i want to write about and try to be fancy, but i think my true goal is to just get in the practice of sharing my musings and opinions. more of an experiment, a side project, a challenge. nobody is holding me to this but myself; this isn't my job, and i'm not trying to make money. if that changes, i'll delete this and pretend i never said that.

i have an entire archive of mini essays and reflections, plus some writings in the past that i am still fond of. so i figure i'll put it all here, and go from there.