It’s been a long time since I’ve written or posted something on this blog. Although I like writing, I’ve realized that it’s not easy and I have had issues with motivating the idea of writing i.e Why am I writing this particular piece of article, Technical or not. I’m afraid writing this meta-post will be much easier than the issues I face,generally, which I’ll go onto mention because answering “why is writing difficult?” is less of a blog article in itself.

One of the most difficult questions, I often tackle before I write an article or when I am in the process of writing an article is, “what purpose does this article serve and why am I writing it?”. The general idea of any writing at all and the one that initial idea that takes seed in my mind is that of the dissemination of ideas, thoughts, or telling stories. I write either when I’m trying to explain something I’ve learnt or when i suddenly get this urge to write about an abstract idea or something i’ve been observing or feeling lately, perhaps like this article. But my thoughts also revolve around the possibility that I am writing it in hope of some friend stumbling upon it and heaping praises on it, or is it for even wider praise wherein someone discovers it and spreads it across the internet, given how gems are found today and made to go viral, It’s hard for me to ignore the thought that this might be the actual reason I’m writing for instead of the things I think I write for.

I’ve also found that sometimes It’s procrastination and laziness that gets to me, When commuting from place to place, i sometimes get this influx of ideas and thought which seem to perfectly in the form of an article but i dont seem to find the opportunity to jot them dow and struggle to remember what i exactly felt later. To borrow ideas from Elizabeth Gilbert’s Ted talk, It is similar to this fleeting rush of creativity which gushes through your mind. And more often that not i suffer from a publication bias, i.e the bias to not publish anything which is considered bad. This belief that what i’ve written is not upto a certain standard due to my inner critic has kept me from publishing and even writing about things in the past year.

One perspective I’ve always stressed on while I blog though has been this idea that it should be accessible to anyone who reads it. While my research in deep learning is technically intensive and I can’t do justice to this, but usually most of my articles are about when I learn something new or make an observation, and hence I keep re-reading it, rehashing the same ideas throughout the essay and trying to look at it from different lenses of thought. Do I feel this article is important or the best I’ve written? Perhaps not. How do i know something is explained enough or is at a level which anyone can understand it in? I don’t. This is probably why I try to look at things in several different ways, so that some euphemism might ultimately be analogous enough for someone to relate or understand.

Do I know what I know enough? What is the true measure of understanding some concept or idea? While defining that is difficult and there can be several ways to do it. I’ve realized writing about things is important, because of the perspective I can offer and because I can offer insight into the way you think about it and might help someone else. Writing as an exercise helps me articulate and bring clarity to how I think about technicalities, observations and ideas and this has bought me back to it.