Scholarch's Blog

Ego death; or, closing some loops

My second response to Tala's post on closing loops. I'm in the process of installing a fresh Debian base on my main laptop, and along the way I want to go over my documents: the store of all my ideas and goals and whims. In other words, my open loops.

Some loops have existed for years, circa the pandemic era. That's roughly five years of holding onto ideas "just in case." Although they exist as bytes on my disk, they are emotionally and cognitively heavy. In this post, I'm making a list of the things I'm letting go. I'm closing the loops, not because I'm marking them as complete, but rather as no longer relevant to who I am today.

One of the benefits of listing them here is so that I can (a) keep a simplified archive of what inspired me at some point, even if I'm not pursuing them; and (b) see if any patterns emerge as indicators for self-reflection.

As I delete each line or file or folder from my disk, and convert them here, I'll make peace with the aspects of my ego that are vanquished along the way. Letting go of past attachments is the proverbial death of my ego.

The following points are semi-stream of consciousness, organized as notes for myself.

Web development

  1. I wanted to create several websites to show off my design skills. One site would have been a personal blog, which never took off the ground. (Indeed, my blog on the Bearblog platform is my longest lasting blogging effort in the decade since I wanted to blog.) Another site would have been a tribute to my favourite novel, Augustus by John Williams. As an epistolary novel (i.e., it consists of different letters and documents to tell a story), I would have conducted textual analysis through the site. I wanted to show off my literary prowess, but at last check I was fine-tuning the site layout and not the content.

  2. For both sites, I would have used Fira Sans, a wonderful font that is similar to FF Meta. Both are by the typographer Erik Spiekermann. One of the appeals of web design for me is the typography; but this blog has made me realize that the content comes first. I don't presently use webfonts because I want the content to load fast for readers. (This means I kept font files in my documents for no reason—they aren't even in my system fonts for local use!) I find EB Garamond attractive and it's one of my go-to picks for serif fonts.

  3. The idea for the Augustus website was active in July and August of 2025. That's nearly half a year ago, and I haven't returned to the novel since. I still consider my favourite novel, and perhaps the real way to show appreciation for it is to revisit it, and keep discussion of it to a blog post. Why did I think I needed a full website, if not to show off? Where would I stop? Past the novel, what about Jorge Luis Borges or David Foster Wallace? Or my general fondness for Greek and Roman culture, Norse mythology, and Arthurian Legends?

  4. I have a blog now. No need to create a new site and start from scratch. That's the thing I've learned is futile and a waste of time: to start over and over again is like buying a new notebook in the hopes that this time will be different. It's better to slow down and to give thought to the next step, rather than to give up and restart the journey.

Tsundoku

Back in February I decluttered my personal library to have fewer than 90 books. On the digital front, I have a folder of ebooks that I wanted to read on through my Amazon Kindle. Even though the latter consists of bytes, and does not take up physical space, I am still burdening future me with aspirations of reading that present me doesn't feel responsible for. Let's clear them away and really embrace the idea of slow reading. I don't find reading challenges (e.g., 50 books read in one year) to be appealing. I want a more thoughtful relationship to the texts I read (not just books, but web content, news, etc.).

This begins with letting go of "just in case" thinking which leads to hoarding texts. I'm going "blank slate" (against my previous words on the pains of starting over lol). It's like declaring a reset of my To Be Read list so that I'm not beholden to the past. Still, to note what topics interested me before:

In the end, I kept six texts as I do see myself reading them in the short term. Whereas all the above are now released—if they come up again and pique my interest, I will be more discerning.

[This post is still being worked on; I'm publishing it now as a way to hold myself accountable to finish going over my remaining documents, of which there is a lot.]