//these pseudo-essays are written with minimal editing and are not meant to be polished outputs. they’re exercises in writing regularly and publishing with as few barriers as possible. tbh, your time is better spent reading something more thoughtful. for my formal writing, visit longwayhome.substack.com. inspired by @visakanv’s 1000wordvomits.
I like being at home. Time with my parents has been really good but more than that, I really like the space and the comfort of being here. The suburbs feel more like a meandering creek than dangerous rapids. I need to meander for a while. I need somewhere I can take a breath and find my footing again. I need an environment I can work to build some healthy habits and unlearn poor habits – being in a new environment jumpstarts this process but I still need to put in the work. I’m still spending too long on my phone, I’m still procrastinating and delaying and chasing cheap dopamine during the days, but I’m getting better. Slowly.
I think Shivani and I can really build an exciting lifestyle here. And by exciting, I don’t mean chaotic and full of novelty. I mean stable, predictable, routine. Something in which I can find some comfort and safety. My life has enough novelty with the travel and the work. I want some quiet. I need some time to work.
I want to find new topics that tickle me the way topics from my newsletter did. They intersected in this interesting way and felt evergreen and made me feel like there’s someone out there who could get a lot out of them. I don’t want to just keep writing journal entries. And I will have ideas. I’m just not capturing them. They’re conversations or fleeting thoughts lost to the bowels of my memory. I want to get better at capturing these ideas for processing and building later.
I feel like I’m getting closer to a breaking point where I will not be able to tolerate a life where I’m not publishing and putting myself out there online. I feel like a life where I’ve given up trying to create something and I keep sending these lame emails and taking notes in these lame meetings and keep track of who’s done or not done what. It’s just that I need to feel this fire and frustration when it matters. I need to sit and try to come up with something regularly, as a part of a routine, even when I’m not feeling inspired, because the writing comes first and the inspiration comes second. And once I’m in a routine, I can figure out how to take it to the next level and earn my first dollar online.
That’s the goal.
To hell with the rest of it.
Frustrated,
Vandan
Vandan Jhaveri 