Some years ago, I developed the habit of writing with pen and paper. Prior to developing the habit, I struggled to write anything on a note because I felt braindead and unaccustomed to it. ‘Creativity is something everyone has’ is what I have always heard since a young age, ‘just something that isn’t tapped into early enough or hard enough for some’. In my case, I’m average, if not less, because my mind doesn’t process things fast so it’s always a relatively steep uphill climb for me. I don’t really have talent in most things that I have had to work on. Writing, for instance, is a good example: I sucked at writing and barely did it - I just played games to fill my time.

Part of what helped me to take on a different perspective to the things I never tried out was coming across people whose words kept me interested to hear more from them. The more I followed them, the more I wanted to proceed to learn even more. They didn’t sound like complicated individuals when I would listen to them - they made their words easy for me to understand. They knew exactly what to say and how to say it and, well, I liked that. They eventually made me question: can I be and do better considering I really don’t do much with the time I have other than throw it away even though it’s meant to be precious? Small events and transitions just happened and those small daily things built up and ended up bigger than what they were originally till the point was reached where writing felt like breathing. The sense of individual progress was a novel experience to me as most of my experiences have felt like robotic and compulsory activities that I personally would not have opted in for otherwise.

But at some point in my life I had to stop using pen and paper as a tool for exploration and growth. Bluntly, the number of jotters I had piled up in my room became absurd. So I stopped writing. Or maybe I was stopped from writing: I won’t add to this comment.

The reality is: I stopped writing. And when I stopped writing, I stopped somehow. As unusual as it is, at one point while I was writing I had the thought: writing is kind of like pouring droplets of spiritual ink into a blank canvas. The feeling was unique to me at least and profound moreover. So I suppose, when I stopped writing, some part of really me did just disappear. I recall elders saying that there’s something immense in knowing and understanding oneself and something about it being a core part of one’s development. Because, whatever it be, one of the greater challenges in life is self-maturation.

And, with me transitioning into a new chapter of events to come, things would be different. They definitely did feel different; I just couldn’t explain why however. Though with similarities, each individual might ultimately be built differently. So figuring things out for myself via usage of a generic search engine isn’t necessarily going to bring me the bespoke solution or strategy that I need to advance and progress forward in life.

I try not to be an Internet person if I can help it. When I asked my seniors who didn’t have much internet in their lives how they managed to live, considering the fact, their response was simple: they had television, books, and many other things that exist today. And they also told me that, when it’s thought about, any technology is really just a tool or medium that can be used to help attain something. Furthermore, when things are broken down to the fundamentals, one realises that all that’s really needed are the simple things. This is because the simple things make up the more complicated ones.

It was amusing to be asked: We complicate our lives by ourselves sometimes, don’t we?

The reason for my amusement was basic. Like how writing any of this was not necessary for me to do. So why write? Turning the question around, why not write? My reason for not writing was that silence can be sufficient at times; but, if I write, not only do I experience and explore my thoughts in more depth but, I also become a better writer in the process. Effectively, it’s the mindset that I keep that makes doing a thing worth it or not for me. If not doing a thing brings no net negatives, that’s okay; if doing a thing brings net positives and the sole cost is just putting in the effort from myself, then the journey and development become the true reward so it’s a winnable situation either way.

When I saw the general side of the Internet, it looked unusual to me in comparison to my reality and because of that I wanted to understand how it’s supposed to be used effectively. The analogy I have of the Internet in my head is something like a meshed net surrounding the atmosphere of an environment containing a library found within a mixed school court playground where anything goes, surrounded by a RDL and pervaded with financially-driven advertisements.

Which is pretty useless to my needs for the most part. True, I live in a digital era and my work is digital but, other than communicating via official channels and software that I use, and using software tools for documenting, recording and writing (many of which are individual applications and accessible either offline or online), there isn’t much more beyond that which I actually need to get through my day. The rest is majorly just fluff.

I didn’t understand OneNote for a long time and I never used it. When I took the time to understand it, I have found myself using it more and more, whether typing in it or handwriting via a graphics tablet which costs half or a quarter of the price of video game that excludes DLC.

A special something seems to be reconnecting with me, and it’s making me feel warm inside.

Catch,

Morad