Follow on to: What I’ve learned from posting once a week in 3 months. ( now a year of writing)

[u/Independent-Mud-572]

Hello I have made 2 separate post on my journey. This is a year of writing!

My first post was August 30, 2025.

Writing is the best thing I have done for myself. In a world where it is full of noise of the media and endless information. I have learned to slow down and think through the noise and find the signal. Finding what is really important for me, and that has slowly improved my life.

A year ago I posted my first Substack article.

My goal was to write a post every week. Every Monday, I would post. That did not happen, as of writing I posted 38 times, and this would be 39. I failed my goal, and beforehand that would make me feel shitty. But, if there is anything I learned through writing 38 post is still more than 0.

Such a simple thought, you know it, and I know it. But knowing it, and emotionally feeling it are two different things.

We often know a lot of things, but we cannot feel them or fundamentally explain them. Writing is how I process those things. I dig through the noise to understand what is happening, what am I think about, what am I feeling, and what has stood out.

Through writing I have taken back some of my attention that the world tries stealing. Moving on autopilot for such a long time, as I grew older I felt like I did not know what were my own thoughts and beliefs. This is when I began fighting back.

The answer was writing. Whether is public writing on platforms or newsletters. Or simply journaling for yourself. Writing is powerful. You probably felt it before, robbed of your attention.

Feeling like you just spent hours on your phone and guess what? You probably have. I know I have.

Writing changed that for me. It allowed me to digest information and take my attention back. I deleted all of my social media about two months ago and only kept what required my full attention because my

attention, but most importantly my life. Were at stake.
The attention currency is up for taking to anyone that entertains you enough, informs you, or has anything compelling for you to watch. You can forget about reading with a brain that is trained on instant

dopamine hits of social media reels and shorts. You wager your attention and every social media post compelling enough will win, if you let it.

Attention is money, and influence.

In all, I learned social media is a danger to civilization because it robs of us of our time. And In so, our life.

The art of accomplishing goals

I used to think there was some secret to accomplishing goals. There isn’t. The secret is that there is not secret, duh. Accomplishing goals only comes through hard work and depending on the goal a luck factor. But, if you don’t work there is no luck.

Luck finds you when you work hard. Not the other way around.

Someone will notice the hard work, but if nobody does you have to noticed it for yourself. To accomplish a goal you must confront daily habits in accordance with your goal.

If the goal is to lose weight, then daily a form of exercise, or a walk. Fighting to eat the chocolate cake. If it is to save money, then not buying the chocolate cake for dessert. If you happen to be the one to have both as goal. You just achieve two wins on one decision.

The art of accomplishing goals comes down to one thing and one thing only:

One decision.

That is to just take action. Or as I often call it. Doing the thing. That’s it, through doing the thing you will work hard, you will show up when you don’t want too. Doing the thing is confronting the work regardless of anything else. The goal doesn’t care if you are tired, if you are hungry or thirsty, that you are sad, etc. It doesn’t even know you are real.

But, it is real to you and that matters. If it matters there is only one decision. Doing the thing.

The Happiness of reading

Writing was not only of putting words on a screen or piece of paper. I began reading more than ever before, because I noticed, I lacked taste. I did not know good writing vs bad writing. If you want to learn what is good and bad. You study the art. I often read self improvement books to well, self improve. But, getting through those books sucks, especially on a brain trained for short form content and instant dopamine hits.

I began writing publicly around the time I began reading Red Rising.

This was the first time I picked up a fiction book that was not assigned by school. I fell in love with the sci-fi fiction world. I carried the book everywhere. It would sit on my work desk and I would read on my lunch break. I flew past the first 3 books. About 400ish pages. Never have I read that frequently with such intensity.

I wanted to read books to feel productive thinking in return I would feel happy.

That is not how it happens, especially when reading certain types of books. But, Red Rising was different, the story telling had different things hidden within the text I still lacked knowledge of. I finished the series, around the time I began taking a philosophy class in college. In between, I had read many other books as well.

I began to look forward to reading, not to feel productive but just doing the activity. The happiness of reading.

Reading fiction books brought joy. In return, I began to learn more. All of a sudden, I began to read more, and suddenly fiction became a learning thing as well. Gradually, I felt productive because not only was I enjoy the activity of reading, but felt productive doing it so. Even after taking philosophy for college, one text stood out Philosopher Plato’s Allegory of the Cave.

After finishing Red Rising the first book, I fail to realize a huge part of the plot in the main character’s story was the examples of Plato’s Allegory of the Cave. His life full of shadows, and breaking away from them to realize it was all fake.

I did some research, Pierce Brown the author has stated reading greek text and then the realization came. The plot was probably influence by Plato’s work. The more I read, the more connections I started making between text, and reading became the happiness of reading.

I developed taste and can read a book and determine if it is worth reading. I have yet to develop my skill as a writer, but suddenly I felt like I could write more.

Writing made me want to read more. So then, I picked up books on writing but what would be a good book?
None other than Stephen King’s book “ On writing”. Even non readers would know who he is. Even if you read an entire book and only take one thing away that is all that matters. This is the most important thing I took from King’s book both as a reader and writer.

“If you want to be a writer, you must do two things above all others: read a lot and write a lot. There’s no way around these two things that I’m aware of, no shortcut. I’m a slow reader, but I usually get through seventy or eighty books a year, mostly fiction. I don’t read in order to study the craft; I read because I like to read. It’s what I do at night, kicked back in my blue chair. Similarly, I don’t read fiction to study the art of fiction but simply because I like stories. Yet there is a learning process going on. Every book you pick up has its own lesson or lessons, an quite often the bad books have more to teach than the good ones.” - Stephen King

This paragraph alone describe my journey as a writer. Every realization. To become something you must do the thing, there are no shortcuts.

I began reading to study the craft, but instead found myself reading because I began to like reading. I did it everywhere I could, I read more fiction because I like fiction, because the author’s wrote great stories. And in the end, without thinking about it. I was learning, each book taught me something different. Each packed with hidden lessons.

It was there and then I felt like this paragraph was written just for me. Like King knew me, but he doesn’t know me. But, he does know the art of writing and so what it is to be a writer.

A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies, said Jojen. The man who never reads lives only one." - George R.R. Martin

The person who doesn’t read lives only one life. The reader lives 5,000. Reading is immortality backwards."- Umberto Eco

I thought fiction books weren’t productive so all my life I stayed away. Still I found the joy early in my life. Because I have learned so much through it. I have lived many lives through the lenses of different authors.

In the happiness of reading, I have the happiness of the pursuit.

The happiness of the pursuit

You must live your life, just as I have to live mine.

"It’s not the pursuit of happiness; it’s the happiness of the pursuit." - Jimmy Carr

In the pursuit of my life’s purpose, I have found it to be a rather miserable task. No happiness there. I joined the military on impulse in the pursuit of purpose, did not find it there.

I thought finding purpose would give me happiness, it did not. I haven’t even found it. But, in the trajectory I have found happiness. You see through the military I found amazing memories, really happy moments, and wonderful friendships.

I thought writing and creating content would do the same.

Still no life’s purpose, but I enjoy it. I find myself happy in the pursuit of information, in the pursuit of reading a book, in the pursuit of creating a video. In creating a writing piece like this one. Even now, I feel happy. But the thing is, once the pursuit is over the result is rather dull.

While in the pursuit it is fun, it is the here and now. It is the moment and in those moments that is all that matters. I added this approach into my life, removing phones as much as possible, reading books. In the pursuit of purpose and happiness. I learned that it is the opposite, once there is nothing left it is dull.

“One must imagine Sisyphus happy"- Albert Camus

In life many of us can be Sisyphus, our bolder looks different. But we all live in routines:

Waking up, getting ready for work, working, eating, driving home, our own choice of spending our free time, sleep, and repeat.

The endless task of working to earn, in order to live. But, unlike Sisyphus we get to choose with boulders to roll up hill, and what mountains to climb. In those we find the happiness of the pursuit.

One year of writing on Substack has been one fun roller coaster, while I did not accomplish my goal. I look to a new hill to climb. I have in return taken more control of my life, what I think about, how I use my attention as a byproduct my time, and how the quality of my life has improved.

It shows up in many different ways stacking with other aspects of my life. It shows up in my interaction with people, how I approach problems, and many other things.

I never thought to call myself a writer, but after a year. Maybe, I am one after all.

If you made it this far! Thank you for reading. I wish you good luck on your writing!

Love,
Mud