Writing again

TL;DR version:

• I am excited to start public writing again after a hiatus of 5–7 years
• I had given up writing once social media took over our collective attention spans
• Interestingly, reading and listening to great content again inspired me to pick up the pen again (so to speak)
• I will write to share insightful perspectives on topics related to business, technology and society uncovered after thinking deeply about the topics using first principles approach

I had discovered writing as a young 20-year old (blogspot was still a thing!). Back then, writing was about finding an outlet for myself, and having a conversation with my rather small reader base. It was still immensely satisfying, but I stopped public writing many years ago.

That was the time when Facebook and other social media platforms were gaining traction in India, and while a lot of bloggers shifted to posting directly on their profile pages (it made sense —your network was your captive audience), I never caught on to those for my writing for a few reasons:

• I missed being able to catalogue my writing. Profile posts never did (and still don’t) provide that option in a good enough way. I mean, did you ever really care about Facebook Notes? Life updates, news articles, photos from last night’s hangout and serious writing all in one did not work for me.
• There were suddenly too many platforms with all of their overlapping and seemingly unclear positioning. People kept jumping from one platform to another, and did not know what to expect. As a writer, the effort to learn a new platform and build an audience there was frustrating. At some point for instance, I started writing on Quora, but ultimately the QnA format did not lend itself to free-form writing like I enjoyed.
• It soon descended into a popularity contest, and the quality of writing did not matter as much as how often you posted, and how seemingly colorful life you lived. It made (and still does to an extent) make me sick (I am told TikTok solves this problem of profile-based popularity.)

What brought me back

It started with picking up reading again and re-discovering listening a few months ago. I had taken a sabbatical from work (more on that later), and decided to rebuild my Twitter feed and podcast subscriptions. My brain felt alive again in a way that it hadn’t in a while and the itch to write again became strong.

What will I write about

One of the things I love doing is to think deeply about a practical business, technological or human situation from a first principle perspective, and uncover insights that are not typically apparent at first glance. This is something my friends and colleagues have found valuable, and so this what I will be sharing with a wider audience. If this sounds topically open-ended, that is indeed the intention and scope.

Watch out this space for more!