Following up from my pantomime post, I want to write a short one on writing these blog posts in the first place. I was chatting with a friend about how difficult it is to write these in the first place, and I agreed. I started thinking of why. And the overwhelming thought in my mind when looking at these blog posts was "What would I even write about...". So I went on an inner journey to figure out where that feeling was coming from.
I don't know about you, but I don't often find myself reading posts about something I already know about. My time is limited as such I seek to learn new things when I do venture into the realms of reading up on things. Hence, the standard for a good post is something valuable, that I didn't know about, that can challenge my way of thinking, or just challenge me in general. Now if that is the definition of a good post, how could I possibly meet those standards in any post that I write. Anything that I write about will by default be something that is in line with my way of thinking, I know a lot about (hopefully), and does not particularly challenge me. As I have no way to guess how others may think about my posts, with me as the only test, there is no way my blog posts will ever compare to the ones that I read.
How to challenge this bias: I was preparing for some interviews a while back, and I just wanted a refresher on some of the technologies I was quite familiar with but hadn't used in a fairly long time. I went through some good blog posts on them and realised that actually not only were they not challenging in any way, but with the context I had they felt closer to a chat about topics I already knew about. They were still good blog posts. And based on the responses some people did find them valuable and challenging. So check out some blog posts on topics you already know about. You'll be surprised. And if there's something you're searching for in particular and can't find it, congratulations, you've found the topic of your next post.
Especially after being with a company or with a particular industry at a certain level for a long time the people we interact with are all within a small subset of the population. And we find ourselves having a shared selection of experiences and knowledge as a result. This overall environment of people we choose to interact with is ultimately very limited. But what it leads to, at least for me, is the pantomime trap of, it's obvious to me, and the people next to me, so it must be obvious to everyone... right? Wrong. Moving around with my job has made me realise that concepts that had become as simple as breathing to me, that everyone around me in my previous workplace had mastered, in different places they were novel. And maybe if not novel, not really understood. Suddenly there was a lot of value in sharing my experience, even if it wasn't in my previous workplace.
How to challenge this bias: interact with people outside your regular circles. This doesn't mean quit your job and go somewhere else. Mentorship programs could be a good place to do this, if one has the time to volunteer. (not to mention they can be really rewarding)
Combined with a healthy dose of impostor syndrome, we can easily think "If it's easy for me, it must be trivial for others". Making it even harder to identify the topics that could even be of interest to others. Things also get so entangled in our heads that it becomes even more complicated to tell one topic from another. Everything seems to be important and nothing is at the same time. At the same time I've seen some blog posts where it didn't feel like the person knew what they were talking about, just that they wanted to talk. Luckily these often get drowned out by the quality content, though with the raise of AI written blog posts who is to know anymore.
Writing blog posts is hard. It requires thinking and ordering thoughts on a specific topic and then putting these into words in order to communicate them with others. I maintain to this day that the hardest part of being a software engineer has never been the engineering, but the communication. So sometimes these may be bad, sometimes they may get misunderstood. Accepting this is terrifying and can be paralysing. But at the end of the day, all I can do is try. And, hopefully, I will get better with every post. And for those reading them, maybe one thing I wrote resonates with you and I will be happier for it.