[intowords] writing #1

I would like to start my article with another invite. Sorry, but you won‘t regret, I promise. Open your schedule and set a 15 minutes event to read this Paul Graham‘s article. When you finish reading it, remember this: it‘s not complex, it‘s simple.

And being simple doesn‘t mean that it doesn‘t have a great value. Quite the opposite, it‘s simple by being easy to read, like if you are in an informal conversation, using first person to spread his thoughts, turning things that may be complex, if a more technical language was used, in something easy to understand. The way you talk, the words you use, the storytelling you create… All of this can turn, for example, a repulsive advanced math equation in something more friendly that can be seen as a group of additions, subtractions,?multiplications?and?divisions.

If you can’t explain it simply, you don’t understand well enough.” Albert Einstein

Yes, I turned myself a fan of simplification. Problem solving is about simplification. To solve a problem you need, directly or indirectly, on purpose or not, to make an analysis, and you do it by breaking something big in smaller parts. We are not Google‘s Quantum Computer, we need to do it. And I decided to break down my desire to write.

why not?

The best decisions I have made in my life started by asking myself this question. If I can‘t reach a convincing answer, that‘s it. Simple as that.

past

To go deeper, we need to go back in time. I remember completely when I was like 6 or 7 years old and I wrote my first book. You can now be thinking “come on, be humble”, but it was just a children‘s story about a kid who had a dog and went on some adventures. It had about 20 pages, made with folded and stapled A4 paper. I also remember creating my own monster deck, this time, when I was about 10 years old. Good times. Realize that all of this, specifically writing and creating, was part of my childhood, and connecting this with the content of the article I quoted in the beginning was one more reason for me to consider turning my ideas and thoughts [intowords].

By writing here, I expect to reflect about “absolute truths“ of my knowledge, trying to look at some concepts and theories from different points of view, also being able to explore your perspective, through comments, DMs and more. It‘s about learning a lot and teaching at least a little. And, between us, our brains are small, but there is a lot to share from our hippocampus using the more than 80 billion neurons.

practicing, timing and prioritization

Maybe you are wondering now why I‘m writing in english and not in my native language, portuguese. Well, once again, it‘s simple. I just want to improve my english skills, hoping that after 20 or 30 articles my english writing capability is going to become stronger. Trust me, I‘m not translating portuguese → english, specifically to force me to practice so it become more natural and fluid. Because of that, you may find some grammar and vocabulary mistakes (and maybe you‘re already judging, but don‘t worry, that‘s ok).

But why doing it now? Being honest, I‘ve procrastined a lot. This was one of my personal goals for 2023, and we are in July. Ok, I had a frightening study/work routine from February to May and, assuming that a day have 24 hours and assuming that poor sleep reduces your productivity drastically, we need to set strict priorities in our lives.

And so that we‘re talking about priorities, let‘s get a little bit deeper in this? I learned to look to the word priority as a singular word. It‘s obvious that in some situations you need to choose 2, 3 or more things to focus, but use common sense. In my life (and probably in your also) it was always very hard to say “no” to some things, mainly when you easily imagine a chaotic scenario where this thing is not being done by you in the next days. Are you sure that this scenario will happen? What makes you so certain? Ask yourself again these questions.

I keep insisting on this based on my previous experiences. Since my undergraduate thesis I remember that correlation doesn‘t mean causality, but my greatest results came when I prioritized well, putting pride aside, and my worst when I though I was a super hero. Draw your own conclusions. Anyway, writing this is now my priority.

There it was, a simple mix of simplification, prioritization and random thoughts about starting to write.

Once (or twice, or more times), when I was part of the Junior Enterprises Movement (MEJ), I heard that doing what was doing, I would impact people that I would never know the name. Hope I can continue to do so.

Thank you, and let‘s keep turning it [intowords].