Despite regularly wanting to write more, I haven’t written anything in 18 months. I have countless drafts that I can’t seem to finish, or at least get into a place I feel comfortable publishing. I've mentally blocked myself from doing so.
I can think of plenty of reasons for this, some of which I'll elaborate on in the future, but I think the Twitter-ification of my brain has been one of them. I struggle to think as deeply as I used to.
I’ve also felt hampered by past “success” of some posts. I’ve felt an obligation to stick to the “technical post” theme. My Google Analytics tells me that’s what people come here for. My ego wants to give the people what they want. I need to drive engagement, to get more readers, to hit the front page of Hacker News.
My brain got out of whack. I cared about the wrong things.
I'd like to fix that.
To start, I'm removing Google Analytics from this site and I don't intend to replace it with anything.1 It's done more harm than good for me.
I also intend to expand the scope of topics I write about. I have mostly written technical content around data science. Put another way, I have mostly written about my career profession. My self-identity has been pretty one dimensional. I'd like to break out of that.
I started this blog as a place to share things I'm working on. As I've gotten older I've found that I don't enjoy "working" outside of work as much as I used to.
I'll still do some of that, but I also want this to be a place where I organize my thoughts around topics I'm interested in. Writing is the means by which I do my best thinking.
- Thanks for the idea, Trey.