Thinking in the open

Who's going to read this? Am I so important that I need a public blog to write down my thoughts? Why do I need another thing to maintain? All these have come in to my head a hundred times over the past months mulling over if I should have a blog. So why do it?

The courage for scrutiny

I am generally a private person that rarely shares my thoughts with people. This is true for the people in my life and especially true on the internet. Oftentimes, I've found that I hide behind the comfort of my privacy — being too afraid of speaking out for the fear of being judged or overthinking the perfect thing to say. I always get to the point where the conversation has already moved on. The only time I would find myself speaking out was when it was absolutely required of me only to learn it doesn't turn out so bad. Now, the nature of my work has become a forcing function for me to share my opinions, all the time if possible. This has made me realize that I was just hindering my improvement; keeping me stagnant. I have now slowly found out that the practice of getting thoughts out there hones my courage for scrutiny. With this platform, I hope to constantly get to remind myself to not be afraid of failure and to be open to criticism while I'm in the midst of forming ideas. I'm not expecting that people will read this let alone criticize it, but the mere fact that this is accessible by anyone in the internet and that they can read it is enough for me. Writing down thoughts and ideas in a public space, even if it's not received by an audience, still provides immense value.

I'm reminded of an old classic video that I keep going back to. The concept of "brain crack" coined and explained brilliantly by zefrank:

If you don't want to run out of ideas, the best thing to do is not to execute them. You can tell yourself you don't have the time or resources to do them right. Then they stay in your head like "brain crack".

When I get an idea, I get it out into the world as quick as possible, this way I don't get addicted to brain crack.

I don't want to be addicted to brain crack anymore. This is my start of thinking in the open. A space where I can have courage to put my incomplete thoughts.