I haven’t posted anything yet this year
Well, not anymore!
I’ve been starting to really get into Formula One this year. It had been one of my goals for the year to dive deep into a new sport that I’ll dedicate an incessant and unreasonable amount of resources, just to have another set of events and trivialities that I’ll look forward to.
From the looks of it, that’s one goal that I can cross off this early in 2023. Most of my breaks from work so far this year had already been consumed by me watching Drive to Survive on Netflix, after critical acclaim from a couple of buds that had been raving about cars, car brands, and those car brands’ drivers. I never understood the appeal at first, mostly because of a stigma I’ve created against commercially-driven produce. Still, with enough drive (heh) to have something to destress with, partnered with the reliability of Netflix to produce a docuseries, I’ve managed to find myself rooting for an energy drink brand to win races. I’ll be damned if it’s the most inconsequential new year goal in the history of new year goals, but just getting to tick a goal off of the planner carries an inexplicable high.
Certainly, I also have other aspirations for the year that require more than just watching a series on Netflix. To a more significant note, another goal that I’ve set for the new year was to publish at least 12 articles in this space. In fact, I always make it a point to include that particular goal every year, making annual bets on the off chance that I can come around to finally doing it. It’s in the same no man’s land as “get a driver’s license”, “learn a new language”, and “workout at least three times a year”. The New Year’s Resolution All-Stars, if you will. Yet, ever since I discovered Substack and created Sans Serif late last year, I’ve grown an ounce of hope towards finally getting those 12 pieces done this time around. Plus, the irony of having a bit more free time now that I’m in the workforce improves the feasibility of it somehow.
Despite my insistence of placing a writing goal every single year even though I’ve yet to accomplish it, I still feel a sense of disappointment when I end up having to strike that off the list by the end of the year – an abrupt announcement non-compliance with the goal. In a lot of ways, the despondence weighs heavier for this writing goal. It’s as if I can always go another year without driving expertise, another year without getting on Duolingo, and another year of January-exclusive workouts, but letting another year of less than 12 articles pass is an issue that’s magnified. My best guess is that when I was jotting down my goals at the time, I always relied on my writer’s persona to figure things out sooner than later. Whenever I didn’t achieve that particular numerical goal, I’d think as if I’ve either let down that writer, or put too much expectations on him. Either way, as the pressure swells, the causality of it all feels more and more self-inflicted.
I usually arrive at that realization in a year's end, yet that thought has crossed my mind one too many times already to start this year. To be frank, this iteration of the writing goal has gotten off to a rough start. If I end up publishing this, it would have already been at least the 28th of January by the time you’re reading this. In case you haven’t inferred already, I’m quite particular on dates; the mere thought of writing that first article this deep into January to me feels as though I’m being backed into a wall, probed as to what else could I have possibly been doing instead of putting words on canvas. My writer winces and withers.
The weeks prior were tumultuous, if at least only for this persona of mine. That period of time was spent encountering writer’s block, and my grand idea of mitigating that was to point accusatory fingers on what could possibly be the cause. I contemplated on whether or not I had been investing too much time on Formula One, but that couldn’t be it. F1’s just awesome. I thought that maybe I was still recuperating from the bliss of traveling outside of the country for the first time since corona, but that had already been four weeks ago. I even considered completely overhauling the theme of Sans Serif to pure short stories, mix it up a bit as maybe I myself just weren’t all that interested in the stuff that I write about. That turned out to come with an even bigger, more intimidating writer’s block.
All these blocks being thrown right at my face had beaten me up so much to the point that I had to take a step back and just … stop writing for a while. For a couple of days there, I felt absolute peace. I was binging F1 with glee, sans the thought of it being a possible blog topic in its own (yet). I was eating food without thinking of the word vomits. The blocks stopped coming around. Nothing much changed otherwise, just the fact that I stopped forcing myself to write. That’s when I realized: I had turned writing into a chore. Instead of focusing on the content of my writing itself, I fixated on striving to attain a numerical goal just to get off on a filled checkbox in the planner. This epiphany wasn’t a sudden lit bulb, a eureka moment that entered my mind all of a sudden. This was the effect of an agonizing process of coming to terms with not just my writing, but also on how I approach other goals. Ergo, I had to learn this the long and hard way.
Now, it’s the 28th of January and this is my first article of the year.
And if there’s anything I’ve learned from my newfound love of racing cars, it’s okay not to start at the front of the grid. Podium finishes from unsuspecting starts aren’t unheard of. As long as I don’t crash and burn, this pace should be perfectly fine.