Vanilla

A couple people recently shared old articles I had written a few years back. This is always fun for me because a) it’s nice to see that at least some of the thousands of articles I’ve written over time endure beyond their temporal scope and b) because of the sheer quantity, I often forget what I had written.

Even more interesting is that when I read these articles again, at times, I don’t even think it sounds like me. Or they do, but they sound like a former version of me. Which is to say, they’re often pretty in-your-face, feisty. Which I rarely do anymore.

Maybe it’s age. Maybe it’s being on the other side of the equation for years now. Or maybe I’m just a happier person. Reading over things I’ve written more recently, what strikes me is just how nice the tone is versus my earlier self.

Much more vanilla.

It’s both a self-compliment and a self-critique. I think I’m nicer and far more nuanced now in what I write. But, if I’m being honest, I’m also decidedly more boring.

I’m sure the two sides can co-exist, but my incentives are obviously far different these days. I write because I like writing and because it helps me get clarity in my own thoughts. In some ways, it may be marketing, I suppose. But I definitely don’t do it for pageviews, because I’m not monetizing this site.

One other side to this is that I used to write very much “in the moment.” That is, something would happen and I’d basically rush to a computer to get up my initial thoughts. The kids these days call that a “hot take.”

When I read such hot takes now, I often cringe. I know that there’s no way the best article about some late-breaking bit of news is going to be the one written within five minutes of that news going out there. So personally, as a reader, I tend to wait for the New York Times take, or, ideally, The Economist summary. These, again, often carry far more nuance with them — much as our world does.

But part of me thinks it would be fun again to try to weigh in on things in a more timely manner. To rekindle some of that old passion about a topic — especially since I’m the type of person who tends to trust my initial gut instinct. Of course, it’s hard to find the time to do that when it’s not your day job.

There are worse flavors than vanilla, I suppose…