1:02 AM

It's 1:02 AM.

It's a Sunday morning and I'm on vacation, typing this blog out to keep myself accountable to my schedule.

Maybe I enjoy writing or maybe I think it's cathartic to put my thoughts down but here I am, trying to meet some arbitrary deadline for a non-existent audience.

I imagine old poets or artists or writers honing their craft, tapping into some form of self-expression working by candle light.

But I'm not a writer.

I have no formal training. I have no obvious experience or talent in the craft.

What comes trudging from my fingers on the keyboard is a slow spill of verbal diarrhea that mixes and sloshes onto the metaphorical page.

Maybe in ten years time, I'll have some semblance of direction, structure, cohesion and creativity.

And so I continue to allow my fingers to tap, to generate.

It's 1:12 AM.

That took me 10 minutes to write.

I honestly don't know where I'm going with this piece. I vaguely wanted to capture some sense of enjoyment & passion because I am still awake and "working" even though it's vacation time but then rambled on into some self-pitying, "enlightened" monologue. I'm slowly giving myself distasteful memories of the Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance (which seemed to ram the notions of enlightenment and profoundness upon the reader).

I slowly wondered if the meta-analysis of my own process would be interesting or illuminating for an audience as a behind-the-scene process but it equally worries me because the stream of consciousness that this poses should therefore remain unedited or unadulterated in all its pure, messy, convoluted essence.

So this will be an experiment.

Definitely not a productive one - so...steering way into left-field on this one since my intended content style for this blog was to discuss productivity and document my journey to optimization.

1:22 AM.

1:32AM.

Staring at the screen, thinking that I will enter some flow-state or that I will be struck with some miraculous inspiration.

Maybe someone will read this and it will provide insight that this journey can be a struggle and there are some days where writing isn't fun or easy or motivating.

Maybe someone will read this and recognize that it can be a challenge to even pursue a random personal blog for fun.

Maybe I will review my own work in the future and compare or find inspiration in this moment of weakness and messiness.

1:42AM.

So what would I want to inspire my future self with?

It's okay to struggle and have to put in the difficult, hard work.

I think that's a lesson I've learned over the years worth sharing or reminding myself of.

Struggle is good.

My parents raised me to the best of their ability to avoid hardship and struggle. They provided for me, clothed me, fed me, offered me opportunities beyond their wildest dreams. I am the first generation in my family to receive higher education and I am the first of my siblings to do post-graduate studies.

All for the sake of an easier, and "better" life.

The thing that gets left out though in those discussions or plans for the future, is that I still need to be comfortable and sometimes seek out discomfort and struggle.

To not avoid challenge, difficulty and struggle

To embrace struggle as a part of the journey

To seek out struggle and discomfort as instigators of growth

Reflecting on my life, I've been fortunate enough to not have had to endure real struggle. Not to invalidate others who've felt struggle in similar circumstances as my own, but for me, if I'm being honest with myself, I wouldn't use the word struggle and lean more towards inconvenience, obstacles, or challenges (I will also simultaneously acknowledge I minimize or discount my own negative experiences).

1:52 AM

Regardless though, maybe this one hour experiment (I'm deciding now that I'll stop my writing in an hour) will be a reminder that it's okay to be bad, to take a while, to be messy, to make mistakes, to have problems...

to struggle.

to be imperfect.

to not always have things go your way or as ideally as envisioned.

That there is beauty, importance, and authentic value in the imperfect, rushed, unprepared, honest verbal diarrhea-esque writing as well.

Sometimes, it may be important to not be "productive" or "optimized" and to sit in the mess that is chaotic, unpractical, time-wasting time. To feel. To sit with feelings. To be open and accepting of feelings.

It's 2:02 AM.

Good night.