Welcome to my Newsletter!
Hey, I'm glad you're here. This is an experiment in a new medium, and I hope that we can work together to make this fun. It's been nearly two years since I wrote 100 blog posts in 100 days. Though I'm slightly embarrassed about the contents of that blog, it was tremendously important in my development as a person and in my creative journey.
Growing up, I never considered myself a creative person, and nothing terrified me more than an unexpected creative writing assignment in elementary school. In fact, I hated writing - so subjective and confusing compared to the simplicity of math and science. As I practiced writing throughout high school, for the SAT writing section and beyond, I got better. People started telling me I was a talented writer and actually wanted to read what I was saying. I began to write blogs and random pieces on Medium, philosophizing about things I knew nothing about. With the 100 Day Project, I broke my streak of being a serial quitter.
Since then, I've adapted the mindset that everything is a skill, from learning to drawing to loving and being happy. Each piece of our lives is something we can improve on with practice and feedback. But skills need to be practiced or they fade and I want to write again.
As I finish up my third 100 day project (you can see the second one here), I've decided to make a triumphant return to writing. I've become so used to writing short tweets and sending out my thoughts carelessly and I want to be more intentional with how I create. What better platform for more traditional, thought-out sharing than one that has existed for decades and refused to die. Email was my first social network, when middle school was filled with chain letters and signatures were longer than the emails.
I've come back to email and I'm not sure what I'll do with it. Which is fine. We're gonna figure this out together.
P.S. I'm calling this newsletter Splash, so I guess you could say I'm making a splash :P. Look forward to lots of water puns.
Drops of the Week
where I *drop* recommendations of cool things this week
Long Form Journalism
"Nick Kyrgios, the Reluctant Rising Star of Tennis" - Fascinating read about 22 year old tennis star Nick Kyrgios, who has defeated Rafa Nadal, Roger Federer and Novak Djokovic. Despite this, no one’s really sure if he even wants to win. In classic New Yorker style
Playlist
Fav Songs - I recently re-discovered my playlist from when I first joined Spotify in 2013 as a sophomore in high school. I would just add every song I liked to the playlist, hence the name. It’s surprisingly good and also all over the place.
Food
Cotton Candy Grapes - I just found out that cotton candy grapes are a thing, and easily one of the most delicious things I’ve had recently.
Thanks so much for reading! If you have any comments/concerns or fan/hate mail for me, you know how to reach me (links below).
Love,
Nikhil