Now that The Snooze Button has some content and momentum, I’ve decided to do an assessment of its progress.
This blog is my first attempt at public writing. I can say that it is serving some of its originally intended purposes - it’s keeping me busy and constructive. I feel that being able to choose my topics and direct myself has allowed me to develop my writing style. My adoption of stream of consciousness narration has unfortunately prevented me from keeping the promise I made in my first post to stay concise. My intention is to set enough foundation to avoid excluding readers who have never explored a post’s topic, and this ends up inflating the post. But as astrophysicist Carl Sagan put it: “If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the universe.”
Initially I had no unifying theme beyond “whatever happens to interest me.” I also wanted to try to keep these introspective posts few and far between. Hence, I didn’t think the blog would last this long because I figured I would probably run out of material in two weeks. But identifying and researching my interests in order to write about them reignited a passion for learning that I hadn’t realized had been dormant for some time. That passion has fed back into my day-to-day life making me sharper and more observant. Through that dynamic I found themes: exploration, pedagogy, and reflection.
Though I expected to have run out of material by now, I’ve written about a multitude of subjects and have so many more in the pipeline: quantum physics, astronomy, poetry, investing, biological immortality, lucid dreaming, global warming, geoengineering, art, internet humor, the technological singularity, fashion, statistics, music, and more. I’ve found that writing for this blog has been therapeutic; pursuit of these interests provides perspective and makes everyday noise like political disputes and tabloid headlines seem so trivial. Even in personal life, how can you get hung up on a bad day or a break up or a computer virus when there is so much going on around you to observe and appreciate.
A sincere thank you to those of you who have provided me with feedback on and offline. I appreciate the input and welcome more of it (in case you’ve been sitting on some).
I very much enjoying crafting these posts and I hope you enjoy reading them.
