nothing left to say
On the feeling that everything worth saying has already been said — and writing anyway.
Since childhood I had a feeling that there is nothing left for me to invent. After learning about Newton's laws, models of atoms and more physics, I used to ask myself — how do I invent something new? Everything seems to be already invented. Some of my friends shared the same thought. It was comforting and paralyzing at the same time.
That feeling never really left. It just changed shape.
Early attempts
In high school I wanted a blog that would give me side income. I wrote about the deep web, launched a YouTube video, shared it across every group I could find. It got 45 comments — all irrelevant spam. I replied to one of them. What a joke. The blog didn't go anywhere.
A couple years later during my bachelor's, I wanted to write something and get noticed in the tech community — leverage writing as networking. I had recently started dipping my toes into Linux and was deep in rabbit holes, so I wrote about my dilemma on what I should spend my time on. I just checked and it doesn't exist anymore on Hashnode. Gone. What better argument for having your own site. Fortunately, the Wayback Machine saves the day — you can still find it here.
Both times I tried to write, the thing died. Not because the writing was bad but because I didn't believe I had anything worth saying that someone else hadn't already said better.
The real block
I'm a perfectionist. That hurts when you want to just start something — or even continue it.
I never believed I could do something creative. It doesn't feel natural. It doesn't come naturally. When people say they do art or write books, I can't comprehend it — how the fuck do you do something out of nothing that's original or even close? I have a moral roadblock stopping me from just restating work that already exists.
As time passed I started consuming more and more content. Curiosity drives me crazy. I realized that for every paid resource there's a better free resource, and not just one — gazillions of them. I can't convince myself to write about something without feeling like I'm scamming people. Best I thought I could do was share self-learning curriculums — roadmaps for learning subjects that fancy me, built after reviewing an exhaustive amount of resources. I'm extremely thorough. Maybe those would be interesting to people exploring the same topics.
But writing? Actual writing where I say what I think? That felt like fraud.
It's very hard to believe I wrote this much while saying that. Magic is in doing without thinking much.
What changed
It was during covid that I learned about the idea of creating luck for yourself while reading Naval Ravikant. I wrote a few personal essays to friends but couldn't connect it to anything larger.
A few months back I was figuring out what skills I could invest in for high leverage in the long term. Writing was one of them. Back of my mind I always wanted to learn it but never did. Now that I've renewed my personal site, I found a bit of motivation — it aligns with my current mindset and vision.
Then I learned interesting things about randomness while reading The Black Swan. Increasing your exposure to the world is one way of creating more luck. A personal site is a neat way to achieve that. Writing about things that fancy me, learning in public, sharing notes — I do it either way in Obsidian. Why not make it public?
I've been intrigued by the act of writing since I started journaling in October 2022. I was excited to learn how to write well but couldn't put it into practice. This felt like a good opportunity to start and see how it goes.
I didn't know what to start writing, but I had the thought that I wanted to write something. And over days, slowly, ideas kept coming. They were exciting daydreams where I'd start thinking about an idea, how it fits into an article, how cool it could look. Finally I decided to write multiple pieces but start by addressing the most pressing issue — the one that makes me hesitant to write anything at all:
Would I ever be able to write something original? Something of value? Or would it just be a repeated dump of already existing information?
What I think originality actually is
I think I had it backwards. The childhood feeling that everything is already invented — that was wrong about physics and it's wrong about writing. Newton stood on shoulders. Everyone does. You never pull an idea from nothing.
The only thing that can be mine is the perspective through which I see things and try to get joy, actionable insights, or see the invisible picture by connecting dots. Two people read the same Taleb book. One writes about finance. I connect it to why I should have a personal website. That connection didn't exist before I made it.
In this piece alone I'm weaving together Newton's laws, Tor networks, Naval Ravikant, Nassim Taleb, and a childhood feeling about physics. Nobody else has this specific combination because nobody else has lived this specific sequence.
I always feel like I'm just a collection of books I've read and people I've heard. But the collection is different for everyone. Nobody else read the same things in the same order and lived the same life around it. The mix is the originality. I don't need to add something on top of it.
You can't think your way to originality. You write, and it reveals itself in what you chose to include, what you connected, what you emphasized. It happens in the act. Not before it.
Which means the ideas and examples I share might not be my own. The perspective is. I'll do my best to cite where things came from — if you ever find a gap, write to me. Credit should never be left due.
Why I'm writing now
I want to increase my exposure to the world — greater luck surface area. I want to learn clear, persuasive thinking, because writing brings clarity in a way thinking alone never does. And I want to practice something I've always been bad at: bias for action. Starting things before they're ready. Shipping before it's perfect.
This serves as a catalog too. I want to look back in a year and see how the writing evolved — not just what I said but how I said it. The clumsiness is the point right now.
I don't want a big audience. I'd like a small number of people who resonate with this and read for the sake of enjoyment while maybe learning something new. If that's you — I'm glad you're here.
I don't believe I'll ever write something like Elizabeth Filips' How Do I Deal With My Emotions. I feel it's either too personal or adds no value because people already know everything.
Biggest delusional roadblock someone can have who wants to write.
Grow up, Jay.