severance
Until now I've been blogging under my real name. I write about technical topics that interest me, typically in a kind of tutorialized neutral tone. I've seen that blog as kind of an extension of my CV, a portfolio of work, that might one day help me get a different job. By keeping that as my only outlet, I've had to put everything I want to say through a kind of corporate-friendly Snapchat filter, one that portrays myself in exactly the kind of way I want to be seen by future employers, or even by my current employer.
As I result, I barely ever post anything.
So today I'm undergoing a kind of severance process - I am divorcing my real self from my corporate self, and creating this alternative blog to share thoughts and feelings that I want to write about, but too often find myself avoiding due to the fear of someone attributing them to me.
Despite loving the idea of writing more, I find many, many excuses not to. What if someone from work sees this? Is it actually any good? This idea sounded great in my head, but I can't write more than a couple of sentences before feeling overwhelming friction. Why should I spend my precious free time doing something that makes me feel like this?
Even with the technical posts, my insecurities arise. Who am I to be talking about topics as if I'm an authority on the matter? While having a lot of confidence early on in my career, I feel that I'm still sinking deeper into Dunning and Kruger's valley of despair. The more I learn, the more I forget, the more I realise I don't know.
I hope that by creating this blog, I have at least removed one of these barriers to writing more often. Perhaps by decoupling my projected self from my real self, I can motivate myself to write more freely and fearlessly. Perhaps if I am able to write more, I will be able to crack free the chunks of rust that have gathered gradually on the cogs and gears of my creativity as the years have gone by.
It doesn't seem so long ago that I was able to write and create for fun. I can feel some hope returning; time will tell if it's sustainable, or just a fleeting spell of motivation.