I've been thinking a lot about four things lately. Here they are, and where I stand on them as of now (opinions that might change even a hour from now, let alone looking back in the further future). Published October 2nd, 2023. 1. Is blogging arrogant? At its core, a personal blog is sharing writing about your own life for the consumption of others, or about sharing your own opinions on various subjects. Most blogs are also rife with little idiosyncrasies, design quirks, and writing styles that are simultaneously personal and meant to impress onto a reader more of your personality. These both require the natural assumption that your reader is interested — interested in your design quirks, in your opinions, in your life — which may be a trait that arrogance shares. I'm not arguing all bloggers are egotistical. Though I do think if done incorrectly, this act of throwing writing out into the world can be [^1] — which is funny, because throwing writing out into the world can also be a deeply humbling experience. 2. On quality. I don't think my writing is *good*. Simple as that. I rarely edit before posting and I don't spend huge amounts of time planning. Instead, when I want to write out my thoughts on something, I write, and then I post. I wonder if I stop posting so much, and instead take time — time to digest an experience, a book, etc — I might produce better writing. The original philosophy of this website was almost about leaving an online record for myself down the line, but it might be arrogant (see above) to assume that non-edited, raw writing deserves to be public-facing. 3. This whole idea of "beauty is terror" has been echoing in my mind, because I keep recognising there are lots of aesthetically beautiful things around me, and I haven't read any other philosophical explanation of aesthetic beauty, meaning this theory of "beauty is terror" just keeps getting prompted whenever I see something pretty. I recently went to the cathedral light show in Reims, whose beauty absolutely shut my friend and I up (we are normally a very rambunctious duo; we never seem to stop speaking or laughing loudly, which I am sure is not aligned with French — or global — politesse). One could say we were awed into silence. Or terrorised. I suppose it's up to philosophy. 4. The future. I wrote, indirectly, some of my thoughts on this in the [[readings/novelist as a vocation]] post. Basically, I've been thinking a lot about how to live as much as possible (not in quantity of years, but in amount of novel experiences). One approach that a lot of the blog writers I like do, is to do cool things in some self-imposed, borderline ascetic manner. The most personal development I've gotten (see [[readings/the catcher in the rye]]) was also done in this manner, indirectly. I'm not sure what my personal challenge will be — but keep you posted, yeah? [^1]: For what it's worth, I think I am extremely arrogant, and the worst practitioner of this. It's no secret this blog has many design quirks, it features my writing style heavily, and is also just various narrations of my personal life. So maybe I'm just reflecting. I still need to think more about this issue, I feel.