It's been a while

Hey, it’s been a while. How have you been? Four years is a long time.

In my defense, a lot happened in those four years. There are already a million posts and podcasts about what the world went through during that time. There are at least a few about what people in Sri Lanka had to deal with. So, I won’t go there. At least not now.

At the moment, all I want to say is, here I am now. I want to write more often. Scratch that. I certainly want to post more often. I do write often. Just not the kind of thing I feel most would find interesting enough to read. In my past blog configuration, I had to complete several manual steps to publish a post after I was done writing. While it wasn’t particularly taxing, it usually became the straw that broke the back of the camel that was a new blog post. I can’t recall how many posts I left as drafts and eventually discarded.

In addition, those few years were an apt time to be active on Twitter. While the blog always felt the best for long-form content, Twitter was for sharing intriguing technical articles and arguing with random strangers. Other times, Twitter was for news, emergency, activism, or political dissent. It was a time like that. But it’s gone now. Our so-called digital town square was bought by an incompetent mayor. Twitter of the old days is no more. While I lost touch with some, most people I wanted to hear from switched to the fediverse around the same time as I. Mastodon is usually a more chilled space and a welcome change of pace. However, what’s happening with things like Twitter, Reddit, and elsewhere was another reminder to own a place for my voice.

I’ve also personally grown a bit during these few years. Granted, I have to grow up in my role as a father, along with my child. But that’s not exactly what I had in mind. Over the past couple of years, I was lucky enough to notice a few toxic traits I had picked up over time and started to be better. And then there was a more profound shift.

Last year, I met my true self for the first time. Since there’s no way I can claim something like that and walk away without an explanation, I can tell you that I am neurodivergent. That means I experience and process the world somewhat differently than most people. I can’t go into specific details for reasons. I promise I’ll elaborate in way too much detail in due time. For the moment, I can tell you that the realization was overwhelmingly cathartic and validating. It meant I was not a defective normal person. It meant I was a perfectly normal neurodivergent person.

Understanding my neurodivergence was the best thing that happened to me. I could argue that becoming a father was better, but becoming a father was a conscious choice. On the other hand, I was born neurodivergent. It merely took me all this time to realize I was. I want to be very clear about this. Even if it was an option—which it isn’t—I would not give up being neurodivergent. The first time I updated this post, I had a section explaining these terms. After a few edits, it was getting too long for an excusable tangent. Therefore, I moved it to its own post. I hope you check my other post, Neurodiversity to learn more.

Now, back to the irregularly scheduled programming. With a decent understanding of my neurodivergent brain (i.e., months and months of retrospection, reflection, and processing my own personal paradigm shift), I was also able to reclaim a not-so-insignificant amount of energy daily that could have been otherwise used to beat myself up—which I can now use to deal with everything else in life.

For example, this blog was due for an update. Several posts needed revising or removal, and I wanted to make the posting process almost painless. Then, there were the domains to clean up. Like any self-respecting procrastinator working in tech, I had accumulated a few project ideas and their domain names. The life where I live can be a test every day, but that’s true for most people living here. However, the burning hole in the wallet—complete with runes of the USD currency symbol—was my own doing. So, I listened to the arguments from both sides and got rid of everything that no longer sparked joy. There are a few ideas I’ve started doing something with—loosely speaking. Pointing them to a page here was more convenient than maintaining separate placeholders.

Therefore, it’s a time as good as any to relaunch this site. I’m also re-organizing the content and updating a few things. But for the moment, that’s all I have to say. I’m glad I got back here. See you again soon.