I love to make things. Music, writing, photography, building Lego structures, you name it: if there's a creative endeavor that requires effort to go from raw materials to finished products, I will probably really enjoy it.

For a while now, I've been trying to focus my creative efforts on writing. The idea of having your name emblazoned on the pages that someone will consume appealed to me (side note: also, a few years ago, I was reintroduced to the works of Ernest Hemingway, and after reading The Sun Also Rises, I found the prospect of being a hard drinking, bullfighting fan in the day and a thoughtful literary genius at night to be quite evocative). Regardless, I decided to pursue writing, for whatever reason, as a way of expressing myself more frequently than other art forms.

After staring at and ultimately giving up on more than my fair share of blank pages, I finally found a voice and began being able to express in physical form the yapping that was nonstop in my head. It felt freeing, rewarding, and honest, and after a while it felt natural. I kept at it for a while, until, as always happens, life interrupted my habit like a kick in the nuts (I'll get to that a different time). The writing came to a screeching halt.

During my, let's call it "off time", I still had the urge to want to write. I still had the romanticized notion of being a writer: the man who could bring about a Belle Epoque of the modern age. He who can stand on the shoulders of giants like Hemingway, Scott Fitzgerald, and Gertrude Stein. Many times, I tried pulling out that piece of paper, thinking it would be like getting back on the bike and flying straight as if nothing changed.

But nothing. And I had to start the process all over again.

The thing I've come to realize about romanticizing things is that the figured you look up to, the ideas that you have, and your motives for pursuing them are intensely overshadowed by the amount of work it takes to get to the end result (which is further away than you think: objects in rose-tinted glasses are further than they appear), and, more importantly, the method by which you attain that result. Every kid who with a passion for basketball wants to be the next Jordan, every aspiring rapper the next Tupac: what they don't see is the effort, the struggle, and the pain that went into mining that diamond.

Seeing the end result of something and how rewarding it can be to attain that thing can be a very deceptive thing. The glitz, glam, recognition, fame, monetary rewards, and all the positives are absolutely nothing compared to the blood,.sweat, and (probably literal) tears that the person attaining that reward has had to shed.

Naval Ravikant has a saying, something along the lines of "do what feels like play for you but feels like work to others". I can't express how deeply that resonates with me at this junction. The thing I've learned about writing is that it's f*cking hard, and getting to that Great American Novel from your head to the page takes a lot of effort. However if it's fun for you to do, then no one can do better than you can.

I'm writing these essays here with a sort of practice ground mentality. Will every post be good? No. Will I enjoy reading them all? Hell no. But will I have fun along the way while doing it? I hope so.

I'm just here to learn to have fun.

I went on a walk this morning and began reflecting on the trees.

The Tree of Life analogy is an apt one: we begin as single seedlings of life, move on upward in a single line and then branch out in different patterns, all while solidifying our roots where we were raised. No matter what happens, that tree trunk always grew that way, and those branches had to grow that way, and those roots had to form that way. Even if you took the tree and you moved it to a different location, those facets of the tree were always meant to grow the exact way they did. When it gets resoiled and continues to grow, it will continue growing in the way it was meant to in that specific way in that specific point on earth. This analogy doesn't just work on us as individuals, but also on societies and indeed entire civilizations and species as a whole. We were all one once, in this primitive sort of way. We all grew together, in either direction, and we all ended up where we were meant to be.

Nietzsche wrote "It is only ideas gained from walking that have any worth." For the first time in my life today, I found this statement to be indisputable. The specific motion of the trees blowing gently in the wind, that puppy barking at passing cars, that way you gave a little hop over that stream left over from last night's rain made your walk today entirely different from the one you took yesterday. Your inner state, combined with the external stimulation of the outside world, makes your thoughts so much more potent, especially if walking alone.

I felt a sense of joy on my walk today.

I haven't felt a sense of joy like that in a while. No, no, it's not a negative or depressing statement. As a matter of fact, it's quite positive. Joy is generally associated with happiness or exuberation. However, today, I felt a sense of joy that just felt like quiet peace. Something about the way the wind was swaying the leaves on the trees, the little salamanders crossing our path, and the breeze against my face. It was calming, and it felt serene.

I'm grateful to be here to experience these little pieces of art that the world bestows upon me in the form of joy.

It's late. I'm tired and sleepy, and yet all I feel like doing is struggling against a blank page.

Why is it that I feel that this: writing, or typing, or whatever you wish to call it, is akin to a pianist furiously wrestling against silence? It is similar, is it not? The blank page, the black screen, the silent room: all must be cut. Disturbed. Turned into a clay structure made of empty space, lines, and sound waves.

This is my first post on this Paragraph platform. I enjoy the fact that I can have more than one publication on it: I feel like I can freely play in the fractured mind of mine but within the confines of what part of me feels like playing today.

Let's get after it today and revisit our thoughts tomorrow. But it's 2:30 in the morning, and as I like to say, today is tomorrow already.

Vivek.