Episode 1: Perspective Shift

Note: I originally posted this article on a personal blog I ran when I was in my late teens and early twenties. I discovered in May 2020 that the Internet Archive had preserved the contents of that blog in its entirety, including some of the media. That blog was an important part of my personal history, so I reposted all of that content on this website for archival purposes. While my politics, opinions, and outlook on the world have changed radically since I wrote those posts between 2009 and 2011, it’s good to know that I was as much of an idiot then as I am now.

Somewhere in the depths of my hard disk, lies a small RTF file titled “Goals for 2009″. It has largely been forgotten. It was an ill conceived idea, anyway. The RTF said: “write at least 150 blog posts this year”. Evidently, whoever typed in that number did not belong to civilized society. Want to smell my feet?

I, too, had dreams. I dreamt of an age where man does not suffer from writer’s block, where little children have no trouble coming up with blog posts containing just the right balance of bad advice, irrelevant anecdotes and mindless drivel, where tiny flying hippos put clever words right into your mouth while Douglas Adams explains the exact meaning of the number 42 to Why the Lucky Stiff on the radio. I realized my quest for such a world was futile. To write, you must think. Unfortunately, on average, I have only two modes of thinking. They are:

Mmmmmm … wha? Bugger off.

And:

# TODO: figure out a better algorithm for this.
def writeBlogPost(clevernessFactor):
    for word in randomize(oxfordEnglishDictionary, clevernessFactor):
        blogPost += word

Now my perspective on life, the universe and everything has changed. I have have realized that pure awesomeness is not a substitute for good thinking. That means I’m not qualified to write clever articles that provide wholesome entertainment for the entire family. I ask myself: what, then, will you do with this blog you paid Rs.4500 for?

This is what: I will try to post here every day. Even if it’s mindless drivel. Even if it leads to invisible sock-pixies spreading chalk powder over my toenails. Even if nothing I write makes sense. This is the perspective shift. I don’t need to write deep, insightful, Hacker News-worthy posts to justify my investment. Something that was meant to be an outlet for thoughts, emotions and opinions seems to have become a dead weight I need to carry around. No more. I shall now write for the sake of writing, not for the sake of making a point or getting more hits.

Episode 1 ends here. You may now be awed.