Read or Write

Welcome reader, to Volume I of my personal blog. I've decided to carve out this tiny space of the internet, in order to provide myself with a space to put down my thoughts, feelings, aspirations. It is unlikely that I will choose to publicise this in any way, shape, or form. It is merely a medium through which to create. Given the internet is now awash with LLM generated text, and the barrier to 'writing' (and good quality writing at that) is now incredibly low, it feels like somewhat of a fools errand to pursue writing as an endeavour.

However, I am of the belief that you can either:

Read, Watch, Consume

Write, Build, Create

I've spent a long period of my life outside of my profession in the former category. I believe that now is the time to make the step towards the latter. I was reading an excellent article on the price of initiative collapsing the other day and felt inspired into action. No longer is it necessary to spend hours on projects and not even clear the first hurdle due to a lack of hard skill. As the article argued, "the cost of trying has fallen", and when that happens "the number of tries increases". The power of modern LLMs has allowed people to take the leap into building their own solutions to their specific problems.

For me, the barrier to creating has always been time. Honing a craft, applying it to the problem you face, and shipping the solution in the days before LLM adoption would have taken hours, days, years to achieve. Balancing that time with the time for work, sleep, family, and friends alongside any other hobbies or interests. Time is now no longer an excuse. When, for example, I can describe and build my own blog publishing platform that affords me complete agency. No vendor lock in, no additional cost, maybe some small upkeep. It allows me to build a writing experience for myself that is custom made to my exact requirements and preferences, with the ability to update with features and products as I need them.

Now I can create, or certainly feel better about creating, then the next question is what shall I create? In truth, I don't really know yet. My initial plan is to write about a variety of topics that I have an interest in (or may develop an interest in) and then look to hone the general thematic of the blog and go deeper into more limited topics. In the beginning, expect topics to include (but not limited too):

General Technology
Artificial Intelligence
Financial Technology
Politics (mostly UK but maybe further afield)
Society
Sports (potentially)
Running
General musings on life
Food
London
Careers
Other
TBC

It is quite an extensive list, and its possible that I don't get the chance to cover all of these topics before starting to drill down a little bit. As you can probably tell, I'm mostly making this up as I go along. I suppose like we all are.

And who am I? The specifics aren't that important I believe, but I'm in my early thirties, I live in London, I work in Financial Technology in a semi-technical position, and I'm a keen runner. For now, I think that should do to paint enough of a picture.

So, here I am. Typing away on my custom platform. Ready to hit publish and start my journey and begin creating.