I cannot believe that it has been 365 days. This post marks the end of a year-long experiment, one that started exactly 365 days ago. I rarely commit myself to such things, and I am rarely on time with challenges, but for this one, I challenged myself: See if you can do it. As I noted in that post one year ago, I prised myself in terms of the quality of my posts, rather than the quantity thereof. Moreover, I always posted things that took my mind off of the daily hustle of real life. But sometimes the things that I do here carry over to my ("work") life. The most notable example so far was when, one evening, I wrote a short piece in which I merely presented some of my strange ideas, as I usually do. I then went on to write an academic article based on those strange ideas, and after almost 400 days of working on it, that article is now published. Without writing that post, I would not have published the article.
Reflecting on this year, I want to see where I missed my mark on the various goals that I set myself. I also want to reflect on how I progressed, as I think I achieved many of the things that go beyond mere posting.
For one, I think I almost wrote 250,000 words on Hive in that year. On average, my posts ranged from 300 to 500 to a 1000 words. Some of them were 200-300 words (the poetry posts) and some of them were 1500-3000 words long (the philosophy ones and short stories). Let's say I averaged between 500-700 words, this equates to between 182,500 and 255,500 words. My PhD is almost 90,000 words, so that is almost three or four PhDs! Adding to the fact that I wrote two chapters for my PhD, and that I wrote 3 articles and a presentation for this year, that is an extra 50,000 words. This was a year full of writing for me.
But I also took some of the best photographs I have ever taken. Most of them were per chance, being at the right place at the right time, like many of the bird and wildlife photographs I managed to take.
Now, I want to briefly reflect on my rules...
1. Quality and Quantity: A Balancing Act
Halfway through the challenge, I concluded that I think that I stuck to this rule - that I will not sacrifice quality over quantity. It is not easy to produce quality content on a daily basis. It took some effort, and it was really hard at some times, but I managed to complete this task! I had to travel with my laptop (which I hate to do) to strange places, posting at strange locations. I had to camp, twice, with my laptop, almost ruining it in the process. And at other times, the words just did not want to emerge... But I drank a cup of coffee, motivated myself, and got through it. @urban.scout also played a major role in helping me keep up my quality and helping me push through writer's block.
2. Engaging is also content creation, I think...
Commenting on other people's posts, and engaging with their replies on my own posts, is also a job in itself. To write something of quality takes mental effort; to engage takes time. In the coming year, I will have more time for this. In the halfway mark post, I said I wanted to increase my comment rate. At the beginning of this challenge, I had made 3,634 comments. Halfway through the challenge, I made 4,649 comments. And now, as of writing this post, I made 5,686 comments. That is about a 1,000 comments. I wanted it to be 2,000. On that alone, I failed this aspect. But contextualising it a bit, I am pouring my soul into my PhD and the articles that come from it, I did not always have that hour two to engage in the way I wanted to. But in the coming year, I will engage more, as I want to pursue some new things that will involve engaging with other creator's content... Keep an eye out for that!
3. Money Corrupts and Growth Heals
From the start, this challenge was never about monetary expansion. It was about growth, intellectual, spiritual, and so on. And I think I succeeded in this aspect. Writing to me has become second nature. Even though my English is still not up to scratch, I must say that writing comes so easily now. I have not yet published another article based on a Hive post, but Hive has influenced how I write, so indirectly it did help me get the writing done.
But for interest's sake, I started the year at 6,627 HP, halfway through I was at 9,158 HP, which is a 2,500 HP difference. Now, I am at 12,198 HP, which is almost a 3,000 HP difference. I can only attempt to convey my gratitude to everyone who voted on my work. A thank you seems so insufficient in showing my gratitude. That is why I want to give back to others in some way, leading to my fourth rule...
4. Helping others helping others ad infinitum
In my halfway post, I said that this is the one aspect which I set up for myself that I would not be able to go through with. Onboarding is much harder than people think. I tried with some of my friends, and the general feeling was that Hive was either too good to be true, or their inspiration waned and decreased to such a point that they stopped posting. In the coming year, depending on what happens, I might try again. Luckily, I was successful in encouraging my girlfriend to stay on, as she posts as often as her own schedule allows it. I will try again, maybe with her friends, who also want to get into writing more.
5. Progress, Growth, and Change
At the outset, I planned to write about many things, which I never managed to get at. So, here I failed as well. I travelled a lot, between my home and my girlfriend's home. Long-distance relationships are never easy in that department. So, my gardening and herbalism posts suffered greatly from this, as I do not have the luxury of having my own garden as back home. I managed to grow some things in the small space I managed to turn into a garden of sorts, but interestingly, after so many attempts, I did not manage to get the compost going. (But that is a story for another day.) But other aspects flourished, like my short stories and poetry, and the various philosophical posts. My art also slowed down, as I spent so much time reading and researching, that I never picked up the pencil really. In the coming year, I need to rekindle this talent of mine, because for the past two years, my family and my girlfriend have been on my case to draw and sketch more often. I have some things planned in this aspect!
In conclusion...
The year has been interesting. I gave class to philosophy students, I presented at a conference, I published two articles, I am almost finished with my PhD, I posted every day for a year on Hive, my relationship with my girlfriend is becoming stronger by the day... Many things happened to say the least.
It has not been easy. I am sure that part of the writing process is getting depressed, and wanting to throw your computer against the wall due to frustration. Every single time after this frustrated-depression, I write my best work. Maybe it has something to do with a mild form of imposter syndrome, but I am not sure. In any case, it has not always been easy. Sitting down to write seems poetic, but sometimes the words just do not want to appear, emerge, spring forth. The page remains blank.
But here I am, 365 days on, 250,000 words later, 50,000 words of academic writing, 100s of photographs, so many stories, so many moons later, I arrived. A little battered and bruised, but nothing significant. Growing pains, one might say.
What will happen in 2024? I am not sure where I am heading. So many things need to happen in 2024, from finishing my PhD, to finding a lecturing job (somewhere), to publishing articles and presenting at seminars. The first presentation is already due on the 17th of January. Will I carry on posting every day? No, probably not. The stress associated with this challenge is something I do not want to experience again. Will I post often? I will return to my quality-quantity balancing act. But this year has been so good for me. And so many people who have read and voted on my work have been so good to me. And I am so grateful to everyone who has joined me on this journey. I cannot begin to explain how grateful I am, even though I always feel like a small fish in a big ocean. Somehow, I managed to survive.
Somehow, I managed to survive.
So what will happen in 2024? I just want to survive and be happy. Travelling seems like a lot of fun, but to me it is stressful. I like a slow-paced life, drinking a beer, watching over the garden, reading a book. But I feel like 2024 will be more "wordy" than 2023. Articles, seminars, PhD, Hive (to a lesser degree than the demands of the 365 challenge!), poetry, stories, and hopefully drawings.
For now, all that matters is getting on the airplane, metaphorically, and literally. I will fly into the new year...
I hope that you will also experience a good new year. That all your dreams might become true, that you might plant the seed for your dreams to come true, or that you might find peace within yourself.
Stay well, keep safe, and I will see you in 2024.
All of the writings in this post are my own. The photographs are also my own, albeit amalgamations of the photographs I took throughout 2023.