Once again I am going to pause and point out one of the core tenets of this blogging project: iteration and incremental work leads to interesting things.
This post not only marks the end of July and the end of seven months of regular posting here, but the one hundred and fiftieth mini-essay.
It is all that extra little bit impressive (to me, anyhow) because I also managed to take a week-long vacation where I was almost completely without usable internet for most of the trip and still managed to have set up this project to hum along without human intervention for the duration.
Blah, blah, blah, whatever—you shrug.
But here’s my whole point: I do stuff like this all the time. I learn new skills, I build crazy projects. I tackle huge efforts of fitness, art, or creativity. And then people wince and say something like—well, good for you but I could never find the time or energy or motivation.
Incrementalism. That’s it. One little bit at a time. One piece each day. A few words. Ten minutes of practice. Pulling your attention away from the screen in your hand and putting it onto a keyboard or a pen or a musical instrument or… whatever.
Incrementalism. It leads to works of substance and beyond.
Seven months ago I started typing a few words about the push behind creative life and at the heart of that was this silly example—which is now a blog with one hundred and fifty articles, and no plan to stop.
Golf clap. Or start something for yourself today. And tomorrow. And the day after ad naseum.
Terms FROm this POSt
- blog
- I am old. And I started posting formatted words and photos online before the word blog had entered the common lexicon. Most people work in the medium of social platforms these days, but being both a product of my time and a stickler for content ownership and control, I still lean into and promote the idea that the blog (a content managed general purpose personal website) is the beating heart of the internet I once knew and loved.
- incremental
- If you’ve never come across the old adage “Rome wasn’t built in a day” you’re missing out. I tend to lean into the idea that when people are saying this they are trying to tell you good things take time, but my hot take on this is turn of phrase is that great things are built stone by stone, day by day, year by year: incrementally, be you talking about an ancient empire or some obscure skill and hobby.
- keyboard
- Maybe it’s for typing. Maybe it’s for coding. Maybe it’s for making music. A bed of buttons arrayed for digital input is my favourite user interface and I’ll write about them often in their many varieties.
