"I speak to challenge the others, I write to challenge myself".
There is an old Spanish proverb, from a village of La Mancha, the name of which I have no desire to call to mind, denoting the three most important achievements that a noble gentleman should have accomplished before he dies:
[1]. give birth to a child, [2]. create a business and [3]. write a book.
Being fortunate to have my priceless daughter, and built a few businesses with great partners, I’m missing the third achievement of this proverbial command.
And now, the time has come to start the third creative achievement, that in a similar manner as the other two, requires devotion and playfulness.
But why I start blogging? Which are the inner "forces" leading me to this continuous activity?
There are many reasons, but in essence, there is only one: joy!
I’ll try to list in brief my top personal reasons for writing and exposing my thoughts to other people. Because blogging is not just a personal "event". It’s already a social confession.
[1]. For the Joy of it
I like writing. Looking back into my career I do realize the "tons" of texts I had produced.
Apart from the thousands of lines of code (C, VHDL, Python, Ruby), I always enjoyed writing long texts as a senior engineer or a manager; detailed documentation for product specification, requirements definition, feasibility studies, business plans, marketing materials, user manuals. And while I like brevity in coding style, it's obvious that I enjoy the narrative and detailed content in documentation.
I like writing. I can create anything.
Yes, I do like writing. It brings me the freedom of "creating" anything I can imagine.
[2]. Organize my Thoughts and Learn
Verbal communication is volatile and often meaningless. It's the perfect field to challenge others.
Writing is completely different. It requires reasoning, argumentation, and knowledge. Written documents can always be relied on for conclusive proof. In fact, they are the perfect challenge for the author.
I speak to challenge the others, I write to challenge myself!
Blogging will force me to learn and teach myself, before presenting facts, events or my reasonable opinion. Every time I’ll be writing a blog post, I’ll have to organize my thoughts.
In case of gaps on a specific topic, I will have to systematically collect information, articulate my thoughts and express with clarity and reason something I have learned or experienced. Every time I’ll be writing a specific topic, I'll have to become familiar with it.
[3]. To get feedback
We evolve by understanding ourselves. Receiving and accepting feedback from "the others", is the single most important, effective and "painful" event that helps us understand ourselves and evolve.
During the course of this blogging experience, I'll receive feedback on my thoughts and my positioning about "significant" or "insignificant" matters. This feedback will definitely help me to better understand myself and the others.
[4]. Improve my writing skills (in English)
Writing is Doing and from my long business experience Writing and Doing are key skills for any position in any industry. I consider Writing an important virtue in today’s world more than any other time in the past. It facilitates Global Communication and Creation of Ideas. Besides, anything New, will have to be written and specified, before creating.
Writing is Doing.
"Rework" by "Jason Fried", emphases to the importance of great writing skills. Read the next paragraph entitled "Hire great writers":
"If you are trying to decide among a few people to fill a position, hire the best writer. It doesn't matter if that person is a marketer, salesperson, designer, programmer, or whatever; their writing skills will pay off.
That's because being a good writer is about more than writing. Clear writing is a sign of clear thinking. Great writers know how to communicate. They make things easy to understand. They can put themselves in someone else's shoes. They know what to omit. And those are qualities you want in any candidate."
[6]. We live interesting times, worth writing for
I like traveling and observing the world, the societies, the people, the business. I’m absolutely convinced that we live in the most exciting period of the last decades.
Exciting because many things are about to change. I really cannot see any sector of human activity, apart from Religion, not changing or having the need to change. I see a global disruption in every major sector; energy, automotive, pharma, banking, military, transportation, labor, education, obviously technology and science, etc.
I see unhappy people, angry masses, incompetent leaders, brilliant innovators, new opportunities, a huge amount of cash at the verge of redistribution.
Observing this global unrest, I'm about to complete my first post in a similar way I started. With a proverb. An old Chinese proverb, that sounds more like a curse:
May you live in interesting times!
While seemingly a blessing, this curse is always used ironically, with the clear implication that "uninteresting times", of peace and tranquillity, are more life-enhancing than interesting ones, which from a historical perspective usually include change, disorder, conflict, war.
Thanks for your time and always live your day with a smile.
The Cyclyst
P.S. Perhaps you noticed that some words into my document are in bold font. This is intentional to "guide" your sight into the keywords of each paragraph. I hope it helps you read faster and understand the essence of the essay. A big part of this formatting is created by an algorithm I designed and created in Python. I named the algorithm MITOS (Memorisable Index Text Observation System) from the Greek word "μίτος", the thread that Ariadne gave to Theseus to escape out of the Minotaur's labyrinth.
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