July has come and gone, and yet again I couldn’t quite remember what I’d actually done. Did I begin living on autopilot at some point? I looked through my photos to recollect and found some landscapes of the local pier and the park—as usual—and then decided to look through my log for inspiration instead. So this month, I’m largely going to be recounting thoughts rather than actions.
To start, with the help of my spouse, I realised that there has been a consistent through-line in my interests for my entire life, unbeknownst to me, which is quite telling about my level of self-awareness. Since I was very small, I have always written and read (though I’m more prone to activity over passivity so the duo has largely been dominated by writing), even when I’m exhausted, and especially when I’ve been sick and had nothing else I wanted to do. Additionally, I’ve voluntarily taken two literature classes in my youth (am I still too young to use that word?), though both left a lot to be desired, in honesty.
I’ve always thought myself too scattered and undisciplined to have a consistent fascination or hobby, and I’ve never been able to succinctly answer the question, “So, what are your interests?”, much less answer directly, “What are you passionate about?”. That’s one of the many reasons I have a “now” page rather than an “about”. But it seems quite apparent in hindsight: I love writing. How many websites, blogs, or writing site profiles have I owned over the years? This site must be number… I can’t even count how many. For some reason, possibly the strange on-and-off phobia of revealing my thoughts, I have always become eventually uncomfortable with an online presence and aborted the entire project, regardless of effort, portfolio size, audience metrics, or any other measure of “progress” one may choose. (I have no intentions of jumping ship this time, and I’ve at least made it to the one-year mark).
Before I inevitably digress, I’ll get to the point: armed with my newfound self-knowledge, I’ve decided to treat reading and writing as a serious discipline rather than a casual, recurrent interest. To do so, I’ve built myself a schedule, a reading list, and, essentially, a study programme. And unlike my past self, I now understand better the pitfalls that have typically terminated my serious projects, such as pushing too hard, not taking enough breaks, immersing myself only in the complicated things with no breathing room for fun and exploration.
Tangentially related, I’ve been thinking lately about how much I dislike surface-level learning. I don’t want bite-sized videos, articles with paragraphs only two sentences long and bolded text, nor gamified apps and easy answers from AI; I want depth, context, history, research, challenge. I want to understand, not simply know. This is partially related to what I reflected upon in Knowledge as Consumption. I’m tired of this modern “second brain” knowledge-hoarding culture, sick of the “learn quickly and move on” attitude. Book summary apps convince people they understand books they simply don’t. Obsidian PKM (Personal Knowledge Management) systems often encourage people to worship facts and information they may never revisit. And 12-minute online videos give us the illusion we’re learning when we’re often just memorising. What I crave these days is slow, methodical understanding of the world.
As an aside, cutting down on internet usage has inevitably led to a reduction in consulting AI for quick explanations, feedback, and advice, and that has been the single greatest factor in reigniting my desire to actually use my brain, instead of outsourcing my thinking to easy hacks or simply neglecting thought overall. I no longer use AI to proofread my writing anymore because it would suggest too many stylistic corrections that muffled my voice (maybe that’s for the best) and led to generic phrasing, and would bombard me with corrections on my vocabulary, advising me to simplify my word choice and trim my sentence length. (You know what? I like my run-on sentences! It used to be normal to read long sentences in English only one hundred years ago. As long as every idea in the sentence logically follows the last, I don’t see a problem. Well, the only problem I see is that literacy rates are declining in much of the developed world, and over-consuming short-form and simplistic content more than ever is certainly not the remedy.) The temptation to paste in my first drafts and ask for feedback was a dangerous one too; all too often I found myself coming away from the advice doubting my abilities to write and self-censoring strong opinions. It also rusted my ability to criticise and analyse my own writing, which truly did atrophy what little skill I may have acquired. So now AI is relegated to questions like, “How long does it take to cook 2.2kg chicken at 180°C?” And “Why does [city] have a [cardinal direction] prevailing wind?”.
And speaking of AI, I wrote (ranted?) in my log during the month about how people treat each other like LLMs in online discourse. I can’t even call it discourse, because that would require at least two interlocutors, and it appears far more like everyone is simply talking at each other, rather than to each other. More and more people are merely monologuing into the void, hoping to be heard yet unwilling to hear. Conversation has become transactional. We seek without being willing to give. Input thought → output answer → ignore. When did it become normal to simply not reply to messages? When did it become acceptable to reply with a thumbs-up emoji to a paragraph about someone’s thoughts? I hate it. I viscerally hate it. This isn’t just about “phones bad, technology bad”. No, it’s about the fact people are becoming increasingly uncomfortable with just being present with each other. Yet, they must be craving connection, right? That’s why so many people are accumulating identities and labels, shouting their thoughts on social media, seeking attention in incredible ways, and aligning themselves with causes of which they know nothing. They want to connect with others, to feel love and belonging, but they no longer have the social skills to do it appropriately. It’s heartbreaking. Everyone is so lonely, and nobody seems to know why (but we do know why; it’s just uncomfortable to admit it).
Because of this disconnect in communication prevalent today, I’ve come to feel immense gratitude for a long-distance friend of mine—and I don’t use the word “friend” lightly—with whom I exchange emails. We initially met through a mutual online acquaintance and communicated via short texts on various messengers, though various circumstances led us to email. And the more we communicated one-on-one via a relatively slow medium, the more our thoughts and conversations grew and spiralled and webbed and sprawled into something quite valuable and meaningful. This friend is one of the few people with whom I feel a genuine connection in our increasingly lonely world (besides my spouse, of course). In our discourses, we cover a variety of topics, from the mundane everyday and shared experiences to social observations and grand—though possibly misguided—ideas. Frequently, and passionately, we share our opinions on things, which admittedly often align, but when they don’t, we do not argue or resent each other; we become curious. “Why do you think so? What led you to that conclusion? How do you see this topic? What do you think of this or that? Do you think your experience shapes this concept?” And more than that, we both seem to be discovering more about ourselves through our dialogues, as well as fleshing out our ideas with more substance and understanding. It’s refreshing to not have to keep quiet simply because I disagree with someone’s views on the world and don’t want conflict, to not be ignored or hounded for not aligning with the right side (and it seems people almost always are on a “side” these days). And it’s deeply rewarding to be able to share depth with this friend; we don’t simply discuss one or two overlapping shallow interests, but can also share what’s been on our minds lately, what’s going on personally, or even ask for advice on somewhat sensitive topics. The more I consider this relationship, the more profoundly grateful I am that we found each other. It seems like an extraordinarily rare thing today.
Well, that’s it for now lest I write a self-indulgent thesis correcting others on something with which I struggle myself.
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