Okay let’s have some stream-of-consciousness style thinking and writing going on here.

Our conventional ideas about ideas are fundamentally flawed.

Ideas are often described like they’re flashes of insight, sudden jolts of inspiration- the familiar imagery of the light bulb comes to mind. But that’s not how ideas actually work. Ideas develop slowly, over time- sometimes over months and even years, slowly mulling in the back of our heads. The moment of insight is real, and I’ve personally experienced it myself- but it is almost always preceded by lots of thinking, conscious or subconscious. Paul McCartney described how the melody for “Yesterday” came to him in a dream, fully formed- yet surely it is no coincidence that the Beatles spent more time playing music than anybody else! (Read Malcolm Gladwell’s Outliers for more on that.) I’ve noticed that people with sudden flashes of inspiration tend to be people who think a lot in general.

I’ve figured out the purpose of this blog.

It feels like a sudden insight but I know that it’s actually been on my mind since the very beginning. For those of you who’ve been following me since my blogspot days (or earlier, bless you!), you will remember that I once said that I wanted a blog because I wanted to be famous and influential.

But the important question that I hadn’t explored was, why did I want to be famous, or influential? It was because I wanted to make an impact on the world- a positive impact, somehow, something that benefitted people. I wanted my existence to contribute to humanity, somehow.

How was I going to do this? I wasn’t entirely sure. I’d always been observant of other people’s mistakes and flaws, but cunningly decieved myself into thinking that I had none.

After some substantial reflection, I came to conclude that I had a lot of weaknesses and flaws to work on myself, and that I couldn’t possibly expect other people to be convinced by my ideas and arguments if I wasn’t practicing what I preached.

During this period, my blog started to stagnate, because I didn’t feel that I had anything worth saying or sharing, and I was plagued by self-doubt.

Along the way, I developed an interest in keeping track of my life- I wasn’t completely sure why I was doing it, but I had a rough idea. Now, all these ideas converge into one.

This blog is about my journey from mediocrity to excellence.

I’m far from excellent in any sense right now, and I have been mediocre in almost all that I have done for most of my life now.

It is crystal clear to me, especially after grappling with and transcending existentialism, that I want to lead a life of excellence in every sense- with my health, my relationships, my work (this is a complex topic that I will have to breach at a later juncture) and everything else. This is not another one of my grand plans that I do nothing about- I’ve been putting my money where my mouth is.

You can see for yourself the progress that I’ve made in my workouts. I’ve been making progress in my poker games. I think I’ve been making progress in my interpersonal relationships- though of course I’m not the best judge of that, by any measure.

For the longest time, my friends have been the unfortunate recipients of my unprocessed and unrefined brain flatulence.

(I think I’ve actually driven some of them off because of this. I can totally imagine them going, “Visa’s a nice guy, but he has the smelliest brain farts…”)

I have a lot of ideas and I tend to share them with people who make sympathetic noises while contemplating murder. This strikes me as rather inefficient and ineffective behaviour. (I am secretly obsessed with efficiency and effectiveness.)

So it is only logical that I put them up here instead- because then those of them who are interested can speak to me about specific ideas or concepts that interest them, and ignore the rest. I’d also be reaching out to a wider audience, which is quite relevant to my interests!

From here I’d like to talk about my immediate goals– which I think will be best achieved in a separate post.