havchr

I ran 5km. It was a low-key 5k run organized by some colleagues at work. I was unsure about my form. I had done a couple of short runs this spring, around 1.5 km, which went fine, but it was a good while since I had steady weekly exercise regime.

I think we were about 12 people lined up at the start of the race. I came to the racing track a bit late, and a bit stressed about not reaching the start of the race – so my preperations were not ideal. When the start signal went, I began jogging and trying to put on my running music simultaniously – fumbling about on my apple watch. In the end, I managed to put on “No Geography”, from Chemical Brothers, and the race was on.

It quickly became evident, that I would not be able overtake anyone in this race. I would be the one overtaken, many times.

And while running, I began churning out thoughts. And one thought that kept returning, was one about losers. Or, not exactly losers, that is a very loaded term – but, the people who are at the bottom of the list. The cliched saying about – “Showing up” – and how showing up is allready beating everyone who did not even show up.

We celebrate our winners – we should celebrate the joy of doing the activity. Keep doing things that brings you joy, keep improving your own pace, little by little, but don't compare yourself to others.

Find inspiration in others, not competitors, find teachers, friends and collaborators, find humans not idols – and remember, for everyone – it's about showing up, and doing the work, moving the needle forward, inch by inch.

So – I took the plunge – I jumped in the water, and I swiped the card, metaphorically, for write.as. I did think about self hosting, I did download the software and I ran it on my local machine, but the distance from local to the web, felt further away than my urge to write.

I ended up paying to write.as to quench that thirst, so now I am here, over my keyboard typing away and feeling the timeless question whisper at edge of my ears : “who will read this, who are you writing for, why write at all” etc etc.

The simple truth is that I am writing for myself. I, as many others in these times, have lost touch with writing. At my job, I tend to work with programming, assets, in the game engine, and very seldom do I actually sit down and write. In my spare time – it is much worse. My focus stolen by scrolling other peoples content, endlessly. Small chunks often lacking context, people with clout setting their agenda, and me, lurking around anonymously at the edges. I feel, that this feeling I am describing, is the zeitgeist, and not unique to me.

I am writing – in my own words, in my own thoughts, too , because it is time I stopped reading, reading, reading. With the influx of large models of languages – the LLMS – everyone can generate a massive amount of text, the amount of things you can read will be too much, so the only sane thing is to stop reading.

Text is worthless Unless it's your own – unless it is the result of you, and your thoughts, then, again, text becomes human.

And once you've stopped reading – you can read again, from small sources, from friends not waterfalls, read for you – and pause, think, ponder, then read again.

Okay this became quite the rant, but if you made it to the end – here’s what to expect from this blog.

Sometimes, I will write about games, game developement, and maybe some game development anecdotes, as that is my profession, and I am fond of games and the joys they bring us. I might also write about other things that interest me, food, soccer, philosophical musing and thoughts about society, and .. in the end, anything that grabs my attention.

As I alluded to in this post – it is time I sit down and write – not for you, but for me – as an exercise in healthily cultivating my ID in this massive stream of otherness that is the world around me.

Thanks for reading whoever you are that made it this far.