23 March, 2026

It's because I love writing, I just need reasons to write, then I just need the motivation, then the discipline. And with these I spent almost everyday writing for over 3 years. Then I stopped for a year, took 2 books to convince me. Bird by bird and Murakami's running book, they reminded me what's there to love about writing, and now I'm here.

Thank you.

To be consistent is the challenge, back then I used to allow myself to write just a single paragraph and call it a day, atomic habits if you know you'll know. With my current lifestyle I got a feeling that there'll be a lot of single paragraph entries, I don't have the same privilege as I had back then, what should I do? Maybe I shouldn't think too much, just keep writing, maybe it won't turn out as bad as I thought it'll be.

It took me 1 hour to write everything above this, that's insane. That's what happens when I stopped for a year, words just don't flow as easily like it used to.

25 March, 2026

I've added dates because I left stopped writing two days ago, you'll definitely be able to tell if I continue from where I was, because it won't flow as smoothly. This is the compromise that I'll have to take if I want to write more, accept that I won't have the time to sit down to write for hours like I used to, but with this new method I can still write, at least a little, 300 words a day, thank you Anne Lamott.

I'm planning to revisit this again tomorrow, or maybe I'll start a new topic, I had a few in mind already. This is a living post, it'll be different each time you come back, I hope, wait no, I know it will, I have so much to say about writing. It's the narrative fallacy, to make living in this accidental universe more tolerable, this is from a quote I kept for years but I don't know who is it from, I can search it up but that might mean that you'll see another date after this paragraph.

Thankfully, I'm back, it's by Ken Liu, probably saw this from a Tim Ferris newsletter because it shows up as the first search result. It's a great quote, it does feel more tolerable, I remember going into the zone, the flow, when I just type non stop, words come directly from my mind, I'm kind of doing that now but not as smooth, a good start though. Let's get back to writing, one of the biggest reason I write is because I've been consuming more than I contribute.

I've been controlling myself to consume less, no social media, no YouTube, no Reddit. I remember doom scrolling wikipedia, my mind couldn't stand the boredom, it's good for us, it's good to meditate, to witness my thoughts, to restrain actions, urges. Writing does the same, being more aware as I type, this is what I'm planning to do with, just trying to be aware of things, write them down, more clarity for me and you.

There are also phrases that I took down throughout the day, well only today, like the quote, like "Narrative Fallacy". I used to have a telegram channel to keep these ideas for my writings, like Anne's index cards, thanks to them now I'm on my 5th paragraph, it's definitely over 300 words by now right? I don't care anymore, I'm having a great time typing and I don't want to stop, it's such a nice feeling thank you for reading this, thank you for getting this far, I can't promise the next few paragraphs will be as interesting but bear with me.

Still on the same day!

There will be more topics that I want to discuss about, like sad songs, like frontend, like kindness and sleep. Random things I hope to be more aware of, to dump out my thoughts about them. These were stuck within me for months I need an outlet, this is my outlet, you're my outlet. I'm just here typing in my laptop's note app, back then I built a site for it but I lost it because I used the server for something else, my journals and blogs are still there, in a database form looking for a new place to stay, it's not here, this is only for the new shiny stuff, you're welcome.

I still revisit them time to time, thanks to Math.random, today I read one from 2022 when I just started using Notion, probably because of Tiago Forte's second brain. The journal was short because I spent all night setting up, but I still wrote my journal, and thanks to that I get to relive that day again, thanks to this I get to relive March 25, 2026 again? This is not a journal but you get to read what's on my mind right now, which is still good right?

I have the time to write so much today because I get to sleep in tomorrow, because I'll be working overtime, honestly I'm quite excited about it. There will be unexpected issues and tackling them together is fun. The last one was tense, I still remember we almost called off the launch because the site is slowing down, I was doing my best to find out what's the cause of it, ended up find out that we were using the lowest tier server with a gig of RAM, awesome.

This is not about writing anymore, I've gone off the rails, sorry about that. Wait no, this is needed because I need to write in order to discuss about writing, and I was flowing that's why it went off rails, and it's good. I've been seeking for this kind of feeling.

26 March, 2026

It's not the next day, it's 2 minutes past 12am, rules are rules, where were we? The rails, maybe it's because I'm sleepy, seems like we can start writing about sleep, about how important it is, I'll try my best to take notes of points to write throughout the day tomorrow, or there won't be a writing session tomorrow because I'll need to stay back after work, let's see.

Good night.

27 March, 2026

It's midnight, sharp at 12 when I open my laptop to write this, I've also set a 15 minute timer so I don't stay up too late writing, that happened to me more than a few times before, I could spent hours typing and nothing else in the world matters anymore, it's such a lovely feeling.

Last night I wanted to express more about the feeling of writing, but I said good night because it's really late, but I didn't shut my laptop immediately. Instead, I built a site to publish this in a website, all that within 15 minutes thanks to AI. Back then it would take me hours, and I would gladly do it for hours because that's just my method of procrastination. I built a journal site, built a blog site, built a dashboard, built telegram bots, built mobile apps, doing everything except writing. I'm technically still writing, maybe I was just expressing in the form of code.

I wanted to say that it's better now that I procrastinate less because it's too easy to build a website, but it lacks the personal touch, which I used to think it's extremely important especially for my own blog. It's our digital garden, I get to choose where I want things to be, today it feels more like I'm ordering someone to build the way that I like it, it's not gardening anymore when I ask other people to flower my plants right?

Still, writing is the main point. When I had my own journal site I would see how I could improve it, sometimes it's out of necessity. I've lost a long journal entry because I refreshed the page and it just disappeared, it was disheartening. So I store everything in the browser's local storage every few seconds, it's overkill but I was so proud of myself, especially the next few times of accidentally refreshing the page again, they persist!

27 March, 2026

"It's all over the place and it feels repetitive, it's like you're talking about things surrounding the main point, instead of the main point."

Or something like that, is what I remembered she said when I showed her this site, I love her and I love her feedback, what I love more is that the very next part of Bird by Bird that I read last night discussed about this, getting feedback from your spouse, someone who can tell you the truth about your writing.

I told her that it's because I didn't write everything in one go, that's why it feels off. That's me defending myself, came out of nowhere, is that natural reaction of being judged? The fear that Lamott talks about in that very chapter, and it's such a perfect time to read it. To show our drafts, to receive feedback, to accept them mindfully, this is what I must do to improve.

She said that she'll love it more if I mention about her, here's some, but I'll dedicate a whole post about her when I'm better at this.

It's repetitive because I don't read what I've written, I'm intentionally ignoring them so I won't be affected by what to write next, what word comes out of my mind next. I told her that it's because I want it to be raw, she said it's too raw. There needs to be something interesting that would keep you engaged, to make you feel like I'm conversing to you. There's too many "I"s so it feels more like I'm talking to myself, it's what I'm good at I suppose, after writing over 900 entries of journals.

Writing to someone else might be a challenge to me, I don't write long messages, I used to blame it on my slow typing, but I don't type slow. The friction is mainly from what others think of the message, the worry because I'm bad with the subtle art of not giving a, let's not use profanity here. I do feel that I express better back then than I do now, I think I have mentioned this before above, bear with me, I do try to remember, but I don't want to scroll up and be affected, I want what comes next to be pure.

I know I need to stop going off rails, more focus on the main topic, but this might end up with me repeating what I read from books that talks about writing, which you'll benefit more if you just read the book instead. My goal, I told her, is to try make this as personal as I can to myself, and I'm like this at all times, my mind is always wandering, so what you're reading here is the default state of my mind.

Meditated for over 5 years and my mind is still wandering, I haven't give up that's the point. I have given up writing for a year, and now I'm back and it has definitely taken a toll on me, on clarity. Nowhere for me to pour out my thoughts so they wander more, writing is like emptying a glass full of water to me, I feel light after every session, clear minded and easier to focus on the right things.

I remember I used to have wallpaper with these three words, don't rethink things.

Write them down and watch the magic happen, if I write in the morning I become more productive, if I write at night I fall asleep easier. It's also funny how the less I rethink things, the easier it is for me to remember things. People told me that I have a good memory, I just tell them that it's because of my journals, and I read them time to time, that's the secret to having good memory.

It could easily be a trap though, you know, living in the past and reminiscing how good it used to be, aren't we all like this, I bet you felt this way before too. Could this be the only negative thing about writing? There's a chance of being stuck in the past, less present, Debbie downer in the making, or worse, depression.

You should still write though.

I always believe there's value from reading what you've written if you're being honest to yourself, that's why this is raw, I'm trying to let the future me see who I am today, it seems like I'm truly writing for myself, but you've made it this far, if you're not me, kudos to you, no wait, thank you for reading, I truly appreciate it.

4 April, 2026

Writing this in vim, yesterday I wrote in Obsidian, back to that doing everything except writing state again, but it does feel nice writing this here, it feels different here.

It started when my colleauge shared about television, how he uses it to navigate around tmux sessions, it's definitely the coolest thing I've seen in a long time.

Not exactly a good thing, I started the 2 paragraphs last night and I only continued today because there's so many things I want to tinker with. I left again because I want to customize vim, it's still not perfect, there's still some things that I want better, like the INSERT at the bottom left corner when I'm in Goyo mode, I want it to be cleaner!

It's that obsession with building a good environment, but I'm doing everything except for writing again. Lots of ideas in my mind, I should do this I should do that, currently I'm in the midst of building a new blog site with Medium style comment so you can simply highlight and leave a comment since all my posts are so long now, and I'm also curious what would LLMs comment, this motivates me to work on it, let's see.

It's the productivity distraction, it feels like I've done a lot, like the ROI is huge, it definitely feels big now that I'm looking at this clean terminal, minimal tmux, lightweight and performant Ghostty, it's not that high of an improvement as compared to Obsidian, way better than notes, but it's lacking of that autosave that they both have.

I wanted to keep things simple, as little friction as possible, but here I am going through so much friction just to create a slightly better place for me to write, is this all worth it. I still think so, because this can be used in development as well, helps me focus better I suppose.

6 April, 2026

Back to Obsidian again, because I can't access all the tmux and vim from my other laptop, more things to ask my colleague tomorrow, he synced his config between his work and personal laptop with chezmoi. I'll be doing that because I really love the experience of writing in vim, even though it may be distracting sometimes, there's just something about writing directly in terminal feels amazing, like writing on paper.

I bought a few notebooks, I want to write on paper more, but every time I do that I feel that it's slowing down my ability to express, it's not because that I write slow, but I usually write when I want to express something to someone else, then we would rather spin up Excalidraw and started typing and drawing in there.

Except this one colleague who loves using the whiteboard and I think that's the best way to describe things, we always walk over there and he starts to take his time writing out all the things to express better of what he's trying to convey, which is extremely effective.

11 April, 2026

Back to vim again, finally got autosave setup. I've actually lost a paragraph in the reading post because I didn't save it, it was brutal but it's not the first time that this has ever happened to me, in a way I'm glad that the paragraph is gone because I definitely prefer the new one, wrote about a few areas that I haven't thought of, all thanks to letting the flow take over.

I wrote about how reading shaped me, and there's one author that shaped my writing. He's a taiwanese author, Giddens, which I discovered during high school from my friends. He's very creative with the way he writes, no rules and he went lengths like one word a page, lots of twists, and there's always something new from each of his book.

After a few books of his, I tried to write like him, my friends love it, and even my teacher loves it. She said that isn't the right way to write, but she gave me very high marks, I was so proud of it. I remember being able to pull stories out from thin air easily, I can't do that anymore now, maybe it's time for me to revisit some of his books.

For a while there I thought of becoming an author, but I don't remember what changed my mind, or who knocked me out of this dream. I don't remember how it felt like but it must be nice to write something freely without rules, and the feeling of excitement to show others, maybe it's cringey to do it now, but back then it was wonderful.

Maybe it's the reason that I still write today?

Not long after that I got selected to join the national service, so I had to spend 3 months without devices. That was when I developed the habit to write journal, literally writing with a pen, I would give anything to get that journal back.

It was a rough start, I want to leave that place so much, did everything I can but failed, took me a month or more to finally accept my fate. Not sure where I picked up that journaling habit, it also comes along with meditation, which I know I picked up from a translated book about how to transcendance into awakening, the final few chapter was wild, but I feel that I've actually achieved close to that some years later.

It was just a simple daily journal, I wrote down what happened during the day, meditate, read and sleep. Those I thought would be the worst months of my life turns out to be the best, I was literally eating vegetarian food, and they tastes so much better. Went in and came out a different man, but transformed back few weeks after, what a shame.

Picked up the journaling habit in the next few years, after picking it up from some book, to enable self reflection during difficult times, I would read the first few entries time to time to see how much I have changed, how much of negativity in there, how depressed I was back then, to remind myself that I climbed out of it.

Writing works in unexpected ways, I remember starting a journal being so angry at a person, and decided to forgive the person at the very moment I finished writing, clarity makes us more forgiving I suppose, or it's forcing me to stop dehumanising someone, and next comes care.

20 April, 2026

I had a flashback few days ago, I failed the english entry test during college, because of that I was stuck in the lower level english class. I don't remember how I felt but it must be quite devastating, it's because without that credit I'll never be able to study overseas. I remember the first bring home essay I was caught letting a friend wrote it for me, maybe I was affected by it, maybe it's a sign for me that being too carefree with writing is not a good idea.

It's such a long time ago, I don't remember anything in between, only this and the final assignment which I broke the rules again. We're supposed to interview someone and write a biography about the person. I wrote about my friend's mom pretending it's my own mom, instead of a proper biography I wrote a story about myself traveling back in time, with time machine and such, pretending that I don't know her, I don't know where I kept the short story but I remember being so proud of it, everyone loves it.

I'll keep writing, no matter how bad it is, there's no one to fail me here. I don't have much vocabulary, don't have a nice prose, I have the will to write because it feels nice, that's why I'm still here writing this even though I'm feeling very sleepy, my eyes are closing, but my fingers are moving, it's really nice.