Eternal Draftism

When I thought of sitting down and writing this letter, I saw that I couldn't log in to my blogging platform, somehow I have the wrong password. Usually, this would be mean a complete distraction from the task I wanted to do in the first place. That is, writing. There is always something that seems more important, an idea that seems enticing, a technical problem that seems something I should be solving right away. And this is seemingly an endless stream of things that needs to be done right away.

So I don't do the things that I actually want to do, which is, trying to write or make something. I am realising I like to build tools, but I also heavily underestimate how much work it is to build good tools. Specially, these days, with LLMs all around, it is very easy to think that I can build all the tools I think I need, but nothing could be further from the truth. Every tool I build needs polishing, and polishing takes time. And time is at a premium. The idea that I can build my own tools before I make the thing I want to make, is a slightly misguided notion. I think every craftsperson needs to build their own tool, but it is also important to not lose sight of what they can already do

Ideas, not only tools, are eternally low-hanging fruit in front of my face. If only I can build this specific tool, I can do this specific thing better; but I don't consider what I can already do. In my perpetually chaotic mind, building the tool always seems like an easy win. But building tools is a Sisyphean task. And it goes for everything, from writing, building video games or taking photographs. It is very easy to lose sight of what is important; today, at this moment the most important thing that I wanted to do, was to write. But the little forgotten password almost derailed me. I feel, maybe I am alone in this non-pragmatism. It's an asymptotic trap that I am always in.

I think ideas are not particularly valuable. They can be burnt like a matchstick, cheap, mostly pointless. Maybe writing them down and forgetting about them is good enough, that is already a good enough threshold for being done with that idea. If an idea does not come back after a few days, there is no point in pursuing it. Moving on, might even be better; instead of trying to make that very idea work.

My next step is accepting that everything is a draft. But I have enough draft, maybe I would have a material worth of a novel eventually.