I want to start a blog

I don't usually check the MIT 2027 discord server, but there was an @everyone ping, so I naturally checked it. I honestly can't believe that they @everyone for a little ad for the application to become a blogger for MIT Admissions, but I should thank them because now I know about the opportunity.

To be clear: I don't blog. I don't read blogs. I had no strong desire to blog before I read that message. But when I did, I had one of my "fuck it, I'm down" moments, and I set my mind on pursuing this. Unfortunately, I had no time to work on the application, so I didn't have a chance to become a blogger, but I've decided that I want to blog. So here I am.

I think it would be a great idea to talk about why I want to blog in my first blog.

1. I've been trying to journal, but I've never been able to get consistent at it. It happens like it always does: I find one excuse not to journal for that day, and then my one-day hiatus stretches on for way too long, and I'm back to not journaling. I figured a solid commitment of having other people potentially seeing my blog would be good enough motivation for myself. I also told somebody about it (that somebody also keeps a blog, and he's the one that indirectly planted this idea in my head) and it would make me look bad if I didn't follow through with this whole blogging business. If I became a blogger for MIT, I would have to write a post at least twice every month. It would be my actual job to keep blogging and in a way, journaling.

2. You might be wondering: why do I want to journal? There are tons of benefits to journaling, and I personally think that I should be taking more time to process my emotions instead of overloading myself with distractions. I appear to be going through an existential crisis at the moment, and perhaps journaling will help me get through it. I've been debating this personal dilemma for a long time, but I've never been able to clearly articulate it until now. The problem is as follows: How do I know if I actually want to do something? For example, I like math, and I went to a math camp, where I was surrounded by a bunch of people who like math. Somewhere down the line, I began to realize that part of the reason why I was pursuing math so religiously was because I didn't want to fall behind compared to everyone else. But, if I were in a vacuum without other people around, I probably wouldn't do anything except lie around and play Valorant all day (which is what my summer's been). Does this mean that the only thing I really care about is Valorant? When does being inspired by others turn into a bad thing? I hope that example was illustrative. I'll definitely write about it more in the coming blogs.

3. I've decided that I'm quite bad at writing. In my memory, which could be totally incorrect, I used to write well. I feel like my writing is no longer in logical order, and that my sentence have become increasingly fragmented. Perhaps I will be able to improve my writing if I simply write more.

That's about it. In the end, this is still a spur of the moment decision. However, certain spur of the moment decisions have made a nontrivial mark on my life, and I think it's definitely good to try new things. It's okay to do things without having a grandiose and better-than-thee purpose.

/#100Days: 1/100