I never know how to take the first step, sometimes I even run from it…

But they say the most important thing is to begin, no matter how. So here I am.

It’s pretty obvious how hard it is for me to actually do that: to begin, to start simple, from the basics, to work with whatever I’ve got. My stuff always seems to involve big, elaborate, perfectly ordered plans… but that’s not how real life works. Not everything is in sync or unfolds in some neat, predefined order.

The journeys that led me here were long, far longer than they should’ve been.

For a long time, I wanted to have a place like this to call my own, to do whatever I wanted with it, my dimension, my plane, my garden.

Initially, I just wanted a place to keep track of my technical learnings, personal programming projects, or any other related topics.

But something changed the idea… it evolved, decayed, lingered, and nearly disappeared.

It was years of thought and planning, but not a single word was written. I racked my brain wondering what I should write here, or what this space should even look like, keeping me from ever actually starting to write.

A classic case of chronic procrastination.

Here I am… finally (?).

I always felt I should document what I learn as a programmer, show the world what I can do, expand beyond just my workplace. And also use this as a way to preserve my own path, for myself.

Should I really make a tech blog?

That was the idea.

But something changed along the way…

Writing has become a more present habit in my life, sometimes when crafting simple verses for a song or a poem, sometimes when sketching introspective texts that help me tame the ghosts of anxiety.

In those solitary moments of writing, I’ve learned that technique alone feels empty.

I’m no longer attracted to the idea of having a blog just to write about websites, apps, robots or teaching how to set up or program things… (I’ll still talk about those things, but it can’t be only that).

The technical side is a part of me, but not the whole of who I am (or who I want to be someday).

I’m not Tim, “the programmer”, or “the developer” (or any other generic label people come up with) I just like to bang my head against some code and see what comes out of it.

I’m not Tim, “the musician” nor “the poet”. I just jumble words and sounds, hoping they’ll bring me some silence.

It’s just me… trying to mix, create and glue things together, like a child who combines all their once-incompatible toys into a single graceful narrative.

That’s the spirit this website will have

It won’t be exactly a blog, nor will it be focused on technology, but rather a mix of technical and human learnings, what they call a “digital garden”. Recently, while looking for references for this project, I came across the concept of digital gardens, and I thought it was something really interesting and somehow aligned with what I had in mind.

One of the references was this post from Rach Smith’s wonderful digital garden, which led me to other references on the subject.

Basically, in a digital garden, we treat each post as a living thing, like a plant we may or may not water. The posts don’t need to be perfectly crafted, with a beginning, middle and end. they just are… something.

Nothing stops me from starting a post about a new experiment, and only updating it months later, when that experiment unfolds (or simply letting it die. Just having started, is already something good).

I also want to write well-crafted articles, but they’re not the norm, not even essential for me to write. Simple thoughts, observations, cheap philosophies might become registers in themselves, without a well-defined ending. Who knows, maybe with that I’ll avoid the tragic fate described by Roy Batty in his monologue:

I’ve seen things you people wouldn’t believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I watched c-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhäuser Gate. All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain.

Time to die.

I believe this way of looking at my posts will help me write more freely, since the perfectionism that haunts me when I work on something, must fade.

But what about the consistency? The focus? The audience? Are you really going to mix everything together? The answer’s simple: fuck it!

I’m not here to make money. The last thing I want with this project is to burden my mind with market-driven demands, trying to be efficient, performative, consistent.

I believe these pressures have become much more present in our lives, not just in the professional world, but also in the way we create and consume content. (Show it in a few seconds or lose your audience’s attention).

And that’s affected me in all sorts of negative ways. Doomscrolling, Reels/Tiktoks, impatience with longer videos, 2x speed audios, instant answers from ChatGPT and constantly checking my phone (sometimes even just to escape social interactions when I don’t know what to say).

Here I want to slow down, learn at my own pace, savor things, write (in Portuguese and English), and seek the same peace I’ve been finding through my musical instruments, analog devices, vinyl records, tapes, pens, notebooks and physical books.

A programmer running from technology.

Contradictory?

That’s alright.