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I was helping the team at work today with roadmapping, and trying to sell the brilliance of always thinking in terms of story. Most stories have been told, but the way in which they’re told makes all the difference. I left even more convinced myself that we should literally write the story that we’re looking to tell, and focus on the people, not the product.

We’re building a product to help people write more, or as I like to think of it: to help more people become the kind of person who writes. Our product is one way to do that, but the overall journey probably looks pretty similar regardless of our product. Hopefully we’ll make the journey better, but still. To become a person who writes, you might:

• Try to find inspiration or motivation
• Read widely to improve your own voice
• Start or join a community of writers
• Write daily to build a writing habit
• Get feedback on the things you write
• Research what you’re writing about

There are countless more things, I’m sure, but most folks will do some or all of these along the way. Maybe not all at once, and maybe not in that order, but they might flow between them. They might invest in one more heavily than another on some day; at some hour. They’re simply moments throughout the journey toward becoming a person who writes.

When we think about how we might help, we’re undoubtedly helping with one of those moments. We might solve it better with a new technology, or in a way that makes it feel more fun, but that doesn’t change the story. You could write the story of the writer’s journey and the big moments wouldn’t have changed for a long time (and won’t for longer still).

Folks have done this for a long time—built their product around a story—but rarely do folks really write the story out, and write it well. I wonder why, and what it might look like. Maybe I’ll have to do it and find out. Surely it’s worth the effort; surely we should tell the story of the people we might serve for years, and aim to make their story better.

I don’t write about this much because I still don’t know how I feel about it, but I got diagnosed with ADHD last year, in my fourth decade here on planet earth. It followed the classic story of “undiagnosed person masks for decades through anxiety and sheer force of will, but eventually it stops working.”

The way in which it stops working is that things just feel… harder. Medication helps, but you soon learn that it doesn’t help enough, and figure out that you have to start learning how to support your brain when it doesn’t want to play ball. Now, finally, I’m exploring what might work for me.

Externalize your thinking.

Create routines.

Break tasks into smaller ones.

Protect sleep and exercise.

It’s perfect, actually, for a person with ADHD, because solving the problem becomes pretty interesting, and interesting things are easier to do than uninteresting things (at least, until they’re not interesting any more). The risk, of course, is that it becomes the distraction itself.

An annoyingly and beautifully effective thing is to just write things down. To write down what you’re thinking, and what you need to do, and to keep breaking it down. Get really specific. Make it really tiny. Write everything down and look at it. You don’t have to keep it. Throw it away after.

I’m wondering, now, if writing down my progress with figuring this out will be a useful thing, too. Maybe not here, but maybe here sometimes. I think I just want to work through it. To know what I’m trying, what what worked and what didn’t. To just sit with it for a minute; for a moment.

Not what I planned on writing today, but I sat down after a day that felt long again and realized that this has been on my mind for weeks, and will be on my mind for weeks more. Months maybe. A lifetime, perhaps, but hopefully not. I think I just needed to write what I hadn’t written, or something.

I want to watch Every Brilliant Thing on Broadway. If I still lived in New York, I’m sure that I would have already. I love one-person shows and admire the insane ability of one person to carry an audience for an hour or more.

One thing that the show has given me despite not having watched it is the reminder that there are, indeed, many brilliant things; that life has many brilliant moments. There are at least a million according to the show.

1. Ice cream
2. Water fights
3. Staying up past your bedtime and being allowed to watch TV
4. The color yellow
5. Things with stripes
6. Rollercoasters
7. People falling over

Those are the first brilliant things shared in the show. I don’t want someone else’s brilliant things though, I want my own brilliant things. I’ve started a (so far, tiny) list on this website, and I’ll add to it… well… forever, I guess.

It’s nice to think of things to add to the list, and it’s nice to read the list back from time to time. To be reminded in the moments that feel less brilliant of all the moments—the many moments—that feel particularly brilliant.

It’s 20:09 here in Oakland, California. Sun is setting and I’m glancing at it through the window as I write this. Too bright still, so now I’m seeing purple blobs everywhere.

I saw an ad earlier for a piece in the Atlantic by Alan Lightman (which, cool name) titled The Ordinary Miracle of Existing. Underneath it said “being alive at all is the most extraordinary stroke of good luck any of us will ever experience” and, well… isn’t it?

I saw the ad when scrolling mindlessly on Instagram, feeling the weight of a week that felt sort of off. Feeling sorry for myself maybe. Feeling stressed and a bit anxious.

I’m alive though, right?

I’m fucking alive.

It’s a miracle.

It’s a miracle that you’re here, too. That we’re here together. That we get to share this experience briefly before we’re stardust again. It’s terrifying and inexplicable but mostly it’s a miracle. You don’t expect an Instagram ad to change your day. You might expect an Atlantic essay to. I haven’t read it.

I’ll go back and forth on this. It’s a miracle to be alive but it’s okay to be stressed about things that feel small compared to death; compared to life. We need a roof over our heads. We need to eat, and to sleep, and be safe. The United States of America hasn’t heard much about social safety nets.

It’s 20:20 here in Oakland, California. Cacio is curled up next to me. The sun has disappeared behind the trees now. I want to write. All I want to do is write. You need to live to have something to write about though. Can’t only write.

I’ve got to pick up dinner. I’ll maybe finish a bit of work I feel behind on. I’ll maybe read something. Maybe write some more. Maybe sleep. I don’t know. It’s been a long week.

I hope you feel alive today.

A weird few days, not feeling myself. The days have gone quickly and everything has just sort of been more… difficult? For no particular reason. Maybe I’m just having a long, boring recovery from being sick. I’m always incredibly irritated by that. Just let me be sick or let me be healthy. Half-sick is the worst kind of sick. Not even half, just 15% or something. Look at me, just complaining about life. Sometimes it’s difficult to avoid being British—the world’s best complainers.

Head hurts.

Back hurts.

Eyes heavy.

Moving slow.

Behind on everything.

I should be thankful, really. I have plenty to be thankful for. There’s some sort of luxury in having plenty to be thankful for but choosing to loudly complain anyway. I’ve always had something to be thankful for, so I guess I’d never be able to complain if that was the rule, and what kind of life would that be? A good one, probably, but who can really say.

On that note, I’ll get off the internet, because I don’t think I’m going to find my joy here today. I think I might find it outside, or with my family, or laying down in a cool room for a moment. Really, almost anywhere but the internet.

I wasn’t feeling great about myself today, after a day where my brain felt totally scattered. Heading out on the dog walk, I was ready to mope around the neighborhood and be slightly annoyed by everything. Instead, I decided to smile, to notice everything Cacio was doing, and to feel grateful for the walk. Annoyingly, sickeningly, it mostly worked. It still surprises me that forcing yourself to smile can just make you feel happier. Like, what a weird little cheat. Glad it works though.

Missed a couple days there, but I’m back. Between getting sick and hay fever, I’m feeling totally wiped out. A good Saturday with friends planning adventures and watching a show; a lazy Sunday where I woke up late, took a few naps, and tried to recover a bit. After a busy day, even writing this feels pretty effortful, and I’ve got a whole evening to figure out.

I’m feeling some sort of itch to change what this blog looks like again, I’m just not sure what that change should be. Maybe it’s just that I need to push through and write more, or try to push projects forward so that there’s more to write about. Nothing highlights how relentlessly similar most days are to one another more-so than keeping a daily journal.

I’m almost surprised that for months I could sit down and write something sort-of novel every day. It ended up feeling sort of meh after a while, but I’m almost certain I could do it for months longer if I needed to. Maybe that’s what some writing careers are like, just churning out an only-okay idea on a regular basis. I don’t think I have the patience.

Maybe I should be finding more inspiration in the every day; in the mundanity and repetitiveness of it all. There is something beautiful in it, and I think I find comfort in it, but I suppose that doesn’t mean it would be fun to write about every day. I should re-read Pilgrim at Tinker Creek and learn how to really notice. May we all notice like Annie does.