Thoughts left in the open

Recently I’ve spent a lot of time developing the details of this site, but of course, a project like this is constantly ongoing, evolving. You come up with new ideas and work to implant them. Though sometimes everything falls into place as planned, often, the project takes a life of its own and you find yourself in an entirely new and unique domain- no pun intended.

So far, I have completed the structure and organizational backbone of the site, and have designated the direction each of my projects will be taking. But the web’s most basic attribute is its ability to transfer content, and developing that content is often the hardest and trickiest task of all. As anyone who has ever tried to write an essay in the middle of the night will attest, writing coherently and concisely is not as easy as some people make it seem (especially when you’re jittery on coffee :o).

At the same time though, I think that depending on your objectives, developing content online can be easier than writing essays or publications. It’s not that the standards on the web are necessarily lower. That is a matter of choice. It is that the web itself has provided a greater degree of freedom, an open forum for expression, where unless you are vying for a specific audience, which is not the objective of most personal sites, you do not have to tailor your thoughts or mode of expression in hopes of drawing in an audience, because with such open space, those who would take an interest in what you have to say are bound to stumble by.

It is precisely that openness, however, that makes the development and distribution of content tricky. It has never been hard for me to write and express myself through words. What I find challenging specifically is deciding which of those thoughts I want to share with the rest of the world, specially considering that I am at a stage where I have only really began to grasp the manifolds of layers beneath seemingly simple concepts and ideas that I thought myself to have been familiar with since childhood. That has made me somewhat hesitant, and cautious in putting out my work out, not because of insecurity or lack of self-assurance, but rather self-criticism and questions like: what if I have not looked at this issue from all frameworks, what if the conclusions that I have drawn are premature, what if I learn more in the future and drastically develop or change my perspectives and attitudes?

But at this moment, what has dawned on me is that even though it is important to take all of those questions into account, the school-yard adage “nobody knows everything” still holds true. We constantly learn new things, we constantly express ourselves, receive feedback and criticism, and once again we learn– building on the foundations that have been laid. That how humanity has grown, that is how we have evolved. It is better to write now what was intended to be written for this perfect hour, rather than wait for that illusionary moment of perfection. And though I have a long way to go, I guess the same can be said of any age or stage because, really, once you stop discovering, you stop living.