Excursions

I haven’t been able to write for the last few days. Or has it been months? I have no idea any more. I did quip now and then. But to me, that does not count. Life kept me busy, and my inclination to think dries up whenever that happens. If I ain’t thinking, writing I am not.

I hate this behaviour of mine. Why must I be in a routine to find time or energy to write? It isn’t as if the words dry out. I just can’t put them out.

A possible answer is that I love my comfort zone. Anything out of the ordinary and I shut my brain down. I can’t think. I can’t do anything that I routinely do. Or so I convince myself. I enter a shell waiting for things to get back to normal. Waiting for me to find my comfort zone again. And then, and only then, do I begin living again.

Until then, I find cheap getaways. Scroll through YouTube. Or news. Rewatching already watched shows. Feel tired. Sleep a lot.

Such a menacing beast this comfort zone is. It makes me feel comfortable with and in control of my life. Yet soon, the same control shackles me down to the routine. The lack of stress the routine brings suffocates me. Stagnates me. Am I then even alive any more?

I’ve been watching Seinfeld’s reruns recently, and one device has always puzzled me. The phone machine. It is a critical element in almost every episode and plays a central part in a few. And yet I have never owned such a device.

A landline was itself a luxury while I was growing up. Very few homes in the neighbourhood had them. Even we got it pretty late. I remember when we eventually did, our house became a switchboard, and we were the telephone operators—connecting folks all over to ones in our neighbourhood.

We received calls at home and took the messages. Sometimes, my parents held the line while I, being the only kid in the house, ran to the neighbour’s home to invite them to receive the phone call.

It was all fun, to be frank. It felt good to hear the stories after the phone call. No one left away without sharing what the call was all about. A few wanted to add more context to what we unintentionally heard on one heard by narrating what was said on the other. It all felt customary.

We never had an answering machine. There was no way to leave a message for us while we were away. So instead, I was the answering machine for others while they were away.

Also, I am not sure I would be comfortable using such machines. I could never convey the message on the spot in short. All I would say is, “Call me back”. What else can one say without rambling on and on?

So when I see these machines screw up the main characters’ lives in the shows like Seinfeld and Friends, I only chuckle. You know, I have been an answering machine, and we tend to screw up.

Writing should not be boring. If that happens to me, it means that I am doing it forcefully or that I do it out of habit. Yet, in either case, I won’t stop writing.

I don’t write because I have to. I write because I have something to say. That’s why I cannot write on a schedule. Sure, I can sit in front of the screen and wait for the words to turn up. They generally do, which is why I have been a blogger for around 15 years. But I cannot force them to.

There are times when I write every day, multiple times a day. And then weeks go by, and I hardly publish anything.

This reminds me of a curious thought from James Clear. While talking about achieving mastery, he says.

Mastery requires practice. But the more you practice something, the more boring and routine it becomes.

It makes me wonder - can creativity be routine and boring? I hope not. Maybe that’s the reason one can never master an art form. They are always learning. The same applies to writing.

I don’t intend to master writing. All I want is to share my thoughts through words.

While working on my blog’s recent redesign, I decided not to display the date/time as part of the post. Sure, I am not the only one who does that.

Although debatable, I find that detail useless for my type of writing, and I was ridding the interface of every element that wasn’t essential. I don’t write posts which are relevant only to a particular period. I am not writing news articles that will go stale. Plus, if there’s an article that forms the context for a post, I explicitly link to that.

So why does it matter when the words are written? I stand by and am even proud of every post I have written. Short or long. On the contrary, I don’t want the age of the post to impact what it says. It’s still me saying that. Just younger. It is the same reason I don’t correct my old posts.

I have also seen people put a disclaimer on old posts saying it may not reflect one’s current views. Colin puts such a disclaimer on his older posts and writes.

Just because I may not think a certain way, however, doesn’t mean that I can’t be proud of what I have previously written — some of it is among my best writing.

I agree with Colin. But for the same reason, I don’t want to put any such disclaimer. Isn’t it obvious that one’s perspective towards things changes over time? Why call it out, then?

I accept that not showing the date is extreme. After all, I still include the date in the source and RSS feeds. But removing a detail is the best way to determine if it is essential. And currently, I am all for a reset.

Straight drives with so little fuss it felt like the fulfilment of a pact. “Just be a good ball and go for four, okay?” Back-foot punches that combined the grace of a ballet dancer with the power of a heavyweight fighter. And those flicks. If they could talk, they’d be like, “Come on, man. Don’t make it this easy.” He was geometric perfection.

Source - Sachin Tendulkar at 50 - The stranger we kept calling by his first name →

A few months back, I responded to Om Malik’s thoughts on the importance of stream of posts on one’s blog. Here’s what I proposed we bloggers should do.

Recommend stuff to the reader on our platform, our blogs. On our home pages. And around our posts. But instead of letting AI decide, let’s curate these recommendations manually.

I have since wanted to update my website, my primary home on the web, to do away with the standard design principle for a blog. Why does every home page have to look a certain way? Pages after pages of reverse chronological lists of posts.

I recently quipped that blogs have made the web boring. That every blog looks the same. All themes are more or less the same. A slight layout change here. A margin or padding there. Varied columns. But all look the same to me. You know that you are reading a blog.

I wanted to stop doing that. I want to curate the experience for the readers. Worst case, for the one reader that’s me. So, I have been working on laying out the structure for this space afresh¹.

A home page recommends a selection of posts. No page’s a reverse chronological list. Even if a reader visits one that’s supposed to be, for example, archive, they won’t see a list. Every page allows a search and an option to visit a random post. A prominent nav bar allows navigation around every post. There are a lot of other minor touches sprinkled across.

Plus there are colours. Minimal doesn’t mean black and white. Minimal can have personality. It does now.

Satisfied after playing around and iterating with the changes for a couple of days, I applied the layout to the site today. Once I did, I wondered if this space was a typical blog any more. As per Wikipedia.

A blog is an informational website published on the World Wide Web consisting of discrete, often informal diary-style text entries (posts). Posts are typically displayed in reverse chronological order so that the most recent post appears first, at the top of the web page.

Not a diary. No reverse chronological order. And yet I don’t care. To me, a blog is what a blogger wants it to be. And I am done with the stream of posts. So here’s to a bold new start.

Until digital video arrived in the late 1990s, 16-millimeter film was the mainstay of the amateur or independent filmmaker, requiring neither the investment nor the know-how of commercial cinema.

Source: Happy 100th Birthday, 16-Millimeter Film →

Fascinating. I had no idea about this history.

The winner of a major photography prize has rejected the award after revealing that the winning image was generated by AI.

Source - Major Photography Prize Winner Reveals Image Is AI-Generated, Rejects Award →

Had to happen sooner or later. This is just a start.

While (Apple’s) market share in India is sub-10% today, we believe Apple through its unmatched marketing and brand presence will be able to turn India into an incremental growth catalyst

Source: Apple Bets On Growth In India With Retail, Manufacturing Expansion →

Wish they did more and looked at India as a very different market. Strategies from first world won’t work here unfortunately.

I have a fascinating relationship with Mondays. There’s some charm to the first day of the week as if it dawns with a responsibility to set things right. With a new zeal not to carry the mistakes from the week gone by.

To follow the routine. To focus on the work. To get back to life.

With responsibility comes pressure. The pressure of all the things undone in the last week and pushed to the next. Pushed out with the hope that the first day of the following week would be different. Better. It never is.

I usually want to get back to all the right habits on Mondays. Why do so on any other day? In the middle of a week? Right? I remember we, friends, once had a running joke where we would answer any suggestion of starting something healthy with “let’s start on Monday”.

Gym? Let’s start on Monday. Stop eating junk food? Let’s start on Monday. Read more? “Let’s start …”

This habit of waiting for Monday to start something different, something good, has stuck with me. Funny how bad habits die hard.