(not) following the footsteps of greats

I’m not much of a blog-reading guy - at least not of the kind that I suspect mine will turn out to be. Rather, what few blogs I have read tend to be more technical and document some kind of long-winded progress through hard projects. I think that this one will feel more like a scattered collection of rambling thoughts.

the beginning

I started writing small notes and snapshots of my life back in 2020 (during COVID!). I guess you could call them diary entries, but that gives them somewhat of an embarrassing connotation. My reasoning back then was to take snapshots of my way of thinking, writing, and state of mind. It’s much in the same vein of taking a daily or weekly selfie to see how I’ve changed over time.

Back then, I was writing in txt files buried somewhere deep in my laptop. In fact, I used to keep them in an encrypted disk image file because back then, that was the easiest way I could think of to password-protect them. This was done using the Disk Utility app on macOS.

Since then, I’ve explored a lot of different ways to store my thoughts and have ever so gradually opened them up more and more (not to intentionally share with people but just making them more accessible).

To give a brief run down of what I used to do:

  • Write txt files in a folder on my laptop and keep them encrypted in a disk image file
  • Write short entries in a single txt file that was manually encrypted using AES-128 and a plaintext riddle (I’m weirdly attracted to keeping things hidden behind a riddle - I think I’d make a good wizard, troll, or otherwise eccentric puzzlemaker)
  • Upgrade from using dmg files to using a password-protected zip file
  • Upgrade to personal OneDrive account because no one would ever suspect that I’d ever use OneDrive
  • Start using Obsidian and writing thoughts down in the daily note (for that day)
  • Make my own template for daily notes in Obsidian to keep dreams and private thoughts hidden under a [!warning] tag
    • Which isn’t actually hiding anything outside of the Obsidian app

what now

Now though, I think there is a good reason to write things where they can and are expected to be read by anyone. Hence this new page on my website.

I’m still motivated by the idea of documenting my way of thinking through time, but I think this is also a good way to write something that’s actually useful to others like a Github gist but less nerdy.

On top of that, I began to notice in the past year that I tended to address some imaginary stranger in my notes. It would force me to add in more context and notes to my thoughts and format them just a little bit better.

I’m hopeful that writing in this public format will force me to write ‘better’ and be more thoughtful about what I do.

It’s also a way to feed my ego a little bit. Now, at least some of the stuff I write won’t be stuffed in some dusty old disk image or hidden behind a riddle.