At my last role, I put in 12 to 16 hour days. Genuine effort, earnestness, everything I had. I didn't get promoted. Others doing similar work — maybe less — did. Several factors played into it: I was newer to the role, certain bets didn't pan out. But the math didn't add up. All those months of grinding left me with one question:

am I properly leveraged here?

Meanwhile, I'd spent a fraction of that time building internal software tools — side work, unrelated to my role. Those tools became widely used. Valuable. Impactful. And that small investment of effort? That's what got me the promotion, the recognition, the signal.

The outcome was disproportionate. Much more visible. Much more important. A fraction of the energy.

675 posts later

This is post number 675. Almost two years of writing nearly every day — expressing thoughts, experimenting with form. I've written by typing, by hand (capturing the image and translating it), by voice memo edited with AI tools. I've built pipelines that auto-generate art (perhaps AI slop) for each post. I've played with structure, style, tone.

It's been an incredible playground. Friends have told me certain posts were thought-provoking, that they found genuine insight in them. The practice itself has made me sharper — better at writing, better at sharing, better at thinking.

But the metrics tell a different story. With zero marketing, I hovered at 5 to 10 unique visitors a day for months. Recently it's climbed to about 25. That's cool for no effort on distribution, but it forces the question:

How is this helping people? What more could it do?

art isn't art until it's shared

I've always liked the idea that something becomes art in the act of sharing it. There's an alchemy that happens when your work is witnessed — when it's for someone, not just for the sake of itself.

The feedback loop between you and an audience shapes everything. How your ideas land, whether the impact comes through, whether the intent matches the reception — that shapes your relationship to the work. Your motivation for it. Sometimes it helps you decide whether it matters at all.

If you're trying to say something that resonates, and you can see how it hits — or doesn't — you can adjust. Reshape. Try again. That loop is powerful. Without it, you're running on a treadmill.

the identity problem

Not all of this is art. Some of it's marketing. And I'll be the first to admit: this blog has an unclear identity.

I talk about tech. Creative practice. Meaning. Philosophy. Personal observations — little tidbits of wisdom I'd want to share with my loved ones. As a melange, it's fascinating to me. But who has time to read all of it? With how time-constrained everyone is, why wouldn't people stick to their specific niche — the tech thought leaders, the stoic philosophy channels, the focused newsletters?

Niche is what gets an audience. People are looking for a thing. "Follow this and you'll stay current in AI." "Read this and learn stoic practices to better your life." Clear value proposition. Clear identity.

My blog? On any given day, you might get some of that. Maybe a lot of it. But not every day, and not consistently.

the treadmill quandary

If you put energy into something and there's very little visible impact, is that where you want to spend your energy?

The treadmill makes you fit. Stronger. But there's something incomplete about it when you look up and realize you haven't gone anywhere.

I started this experiment knowing there might never be an audience. That the practice itself would be the reward — shaping my thoughts, strengthening my voice, becoming better at the craft. And it has done that.

But 675 posts in, I find myself wishing there was more. Not for ego. For purpose. Because knowing that people rely on your work — that what you produce matters to someone — changes the dynamic entirely. It means you're in service, not just in practice.

So the question isn't whether to keep going. It's how to get off the treadmill and actually run somewhere.