Building Myself in Public (Newsletter Edition)

This newsletter brings together and reworks three posts from my October notes:

1. Build me in public
2. Putting in the Reps to Ease My Anxiety
3. A Note of Thanks

If you've already read all three, you can pretty much skip this one.

I've been updating my personal website more often lately, writing short notes and gradually putting more of myself out there: the different sides of me, the things I think about. It feels like I'm building myself in public.

Words have a kind of magic that takes effect as you write them down. Sometimes I notice that the person I describe in my writing isn't just who I am now; there's a little of who I want to become mixed in too. And every time I go back and reread what I've written, that intention grows stronger.

Writing something in my notes and publishing it still carry different weight. Knowing someone might read it makes me put more care into organizing my thoughts. I've left plenty of scattered ideas in my note-taking app, only to never look at them again as time passes. They've piled up into digital clutter. Lately, I've read articles about things I'd thought about before. If I tried to develop those thoughts now, they'd turn into something different, and I have other things I want to write about now too. I often wish I'd published them back then.

I also think a personal website gives me more reason to revisit things than a note-taking app does. Besides being public, it's also free to take whatever form I want. Note-taking apps still confine you to their interfaces, but with AI, I can now change my website's layout and theme whenever I want. (Chess enthusiast Shou-jen's personal website, for instance, makes you start a game of chess as soon as you arrive. Pretty cool.)

Continuing last month's efforts, I've managed to pull further away from social media this month. But I still catch myself wanting to scroll through something. My substitutes have been the newsletters sitting in my inbox and my RSS reader. Of the feeds I subscribe to, Wiwi and Lee Wei show up most often, since they both post so frequently. Seeing them quietly focus on recording their lives and thoughts on their own websites made me want to do the same.

So I finally built a notes section. I wanted somewhere I could post without so much pressure, where pieces wouldn't have to feel as complete as the ones in Life. It's been a month, and I've written nine notes. Future monthly newsletters might grow out of those notes and be reworked into a single article, like this one. Sometimes, while writing a note, I also find it has the potential to become a full-length piece.

About Substack

Lately, I haven't really wanted to open Substack. I've switched my in-app notifications to email too. Substack still has social features like likes, replies, and sharing, and I've noticed they get to me. I envy people whose posts get more responses. I've realized I don't want that kind of stimulation right now. What I need is to write more and focus on expressing myself better. I also want to let Substack be a newsletter platform again: less scrolling through the feed and checking numbers, more reading other writers' newsletters.

Of course, those social features let me connect with other writers and readers more immediately. And I like how earnestly the writers on Substack record their lives and thoughts.

Writing on Substack has also shown me that I'm not alone. Plenty of people think the way I do and use writing to keep a record of themselves. The comments tend to be warm too, something I see much less often on other major social platforms: Facebook, Instagram, Threads, and X.

I'll come back and spend more time talking with everyone later!

On a personal website, feedback is slow, and it's hard to know who's reading. But that makes every interaction feel more precious, whether it's a comment, an emoji reaction, or an email exchange. After I started posting notes more often, people actually began leaving comments and reactions quite quickly. It made me realize that some people really had been quietly following my website. That made me happy!

Putting in the Reps to Ease My Anxiety

When I feel anxious lately, I tell myself to start doing something.

I've been tracking my time in my calendar and using a Pomodoro timer for years.

Recently, I looked back over the numbers and realized I hadn't been working nearly as hard as I imagined. I wasn't putting in enough time, yet I was spending plenty of it feeling anxious and worrying that I wasn't good enough.

So I decided to put in more work first, then worry about whether I'm good enough.

It reminded me of an experiment I read about in Atomic Habits. Jerry Uelsmann, a photography professor at the University of Florida, divided his students into a “quantity” group and a “quality” group. One group had to submit as many photos as possible and would be graded on quantity. The other only had to submit one photo, and their grade would depend on that photo.

The quantity group ended up producing better photographs because they spent so much time experimenting, making mistakes, and adjusting. The quality group, chasing perfection, focused too much on theory and made too few attempts. Their results fell short.

Of course, not everything can be measured, and putting in more doesn't necessarily lead to better results, especially in the age of AI. But to assess what your efforts are producing and adjust your direction, you still have to put in plenty of work first. To use AI well, you have to spend a lot of time using it too.

Some anxiety and mental churn come from a lack of action and knowledge. Start doing something, and turn that anxiety into motivation to look for a way forward.

Gratitude and Joy

Since I started posting notes more often in October, people have occasionally left comments and replies. That's how I discovered that some people really were quietly following my blog updates this month and subscribing through RSS. It made me happy!

I'm glad I set up the notes section. It gives me somewhere to share short pieces more freely, and some keep growing as I write until I decide to turn them into longer articles.

On October 23, I got an email notification from Boba: someone had bought me a bubble tea.

I'm not sure why I hadn't received notifications before, because when I opened the dashboard, I found there was more than one!

The first two were probably from friends, but the later ones came from people I didn't know at all.

I hadn't realized how happy it would make me to have someone read my writing and the things I record here, then decide to support me financially. This was the first time my writing had brought me such tangible support.

Also, I chose Boba Me because I saw 刷比 using it. Thank you, 刷比! (Though I've had it on my site for so long before getting around to saying thanks that perhaps I should apologize first.)

A Few Closing Thoughts

I hope I can keep up this rhythm of writing notes in November. I'm still not sure whether November's newsletter will also bring together and rework excerpts or be an entirely new article.

As for “Did My Dream Come True at 29? (Part 2),” there are still so many things up in the air in my life and my thinking. I've written several versions but haven't been able to settle on a final draft. That's also part of why the notes section came about: this piece feels too difficult to put into words right now. If I keep insisting that I finish it, I'll have a hard time starting anything else. I'll share it with everyone once the dust has settled!

A few days ago, I read this in 日本創業野帳's 沒有困惑的人生沒有活過！:

Someday, the draft has to be discarded. 日本創業野帳, too, will ultimately be only an intermediate state.

Translated by me from the Chinese original.

That line hit home. It made me feel I should be bolder about trying things. I'm still in an intermediate state myself, and I don't know where my writing will eventually take me. But right now, I still have so much I want to write, and so many forms I want to try. So come along and see who I build myself into, out here in public!

You're also welcome to subscribe to my RSS feed to catch my notes and other short pieces that don't make it into the newsletter as they're published.

It's been getting cooler in Tokyo, and friends in Taiwan tell me it's cooled down a little there too. Take care and keep warm as the seasons change. See you next month!