The Soul Becomes Dyed with the Color of its Thoughts

"The soul becomes dyed with the color of its thoughts."
- Marcus Aurelius, The Meditations

They don’t tell you that ‘growing up’ often feels like turning into a rock. You get tougher, sure, but you also become numb. For the past four years, I’ve watched my creativity fade like the battery on my old iPad- getting slower and more sluggish day by day. Somewhere between the looong grind of university admissions, almost six months of military service and the weight of an Econ degree, the person who used to once read twenty books a year just, evaporated.

I’m not here to create ‘content’ for an audience; I’m here to find the guy who used to find joy in the little pockets of the day…

Ever heard of creative block? I think I’ve been experiencing every variation of it for the past two to four years.

It probably started as a reading block. Back in my college days, I used to read two books a month- that’s about twenty books a year! Looking back over the past five years, I’ve probably finished five books in total. Why? Honestly, I don’t really know.

Since my school days, I also loved to draw. But I slowly started losing interest in physical pencil drawing once I got an iPad and transitioned to digital art. My creativity spiked for a few years, but it eventually faded as the iPad grew older and too sluggish to handle different textures and brushes in Procreate.

I even used to play multiplayer FPS games with my school friends. All those crazy sleepless nights playing Paladins, Overwatch and Valorant and more of what I can’t remember now… Literally a decade has passed; gone are the all-nighters and the crazy shouting in the middle of the night.

I low-key miss that life.

It all started to fall apart after I passed the 12th grade and had to lock-in for university admissions. The COVID-19 pandemic, combined with that grueling 6 months of admission phase, changed me. It vaporized most of my childhood habits and the person I used to be, slowly but permanently turning me into a numb piece of rock.

Back then, I had another habit: writing. I used to write everywhere, from Quora to my personal blog. Most of ‘em lost to time for some unknown reason. Lately, I’ve been thinking constantly about how I can slowly bring some of these habits back into my present life and add some color back into my day-to-day life.

It’s not like I live in a completely black-and-white world now. It’s just that I miss the old me- the guy who wasn’t so endlessly worried about the world. I always faced tremendous academic pressure since childhood, battles one after another. but I used to find ways to squeeze in those little pockets of happiness. I still cherish those moments, and I want to bring them back if it’s still possible.

My Lazy Initiative

So, I’m starting this small initiative to get back into writing. My target is to post each week (preferably on Fridays). This time, I’m not doing it with the intention of “creating content” (because that obviously hasn’t been working for me), but rather from a sentimental point of view. And I think it’ll stick this time.

Initially, I had all these plans to make this newsletter purely “high-signal”, packed with so much immediate value for my ideal readers that they’d keep coming back. But I’ve realized that’s the wrong way to look at it.

Instead of writing strictly about UX design, business or my undergrad field of study: Economics, I want to write to reconnect with myself. I want to share my genuine reflections, documenting the process, sharing whatever I’m doing and learning right now, my very own thoughts on things that interests me to write on, and the journey of finding that kick again.

Once again, welcome to The Lazy Founder.

Here’s to writing just to write again…

Until next time,

Fattahia