To Write Is To BE Free

Picture this: "You have an office or study desk. You've been wanting to tidy your space, get the deodorant, comb, rough papers, piles of useless books and a piece of yesterday's chips off the table, give it a proper wipe and get more work done in a clean, clutter-free desk setup." Well, believe it or not, that's exactly how your mind works as well. Information clutter brings about confusion, stress, forgetfulness, uncertainty, and the list of negatives goes on and on. So let's organize our thoughts here and start from the beginning. My name is Joseph Ochego and I am a mechanical engineer draughtsman - "draftsman" enUS by day, and a web dev by night. As a consequence of my love for technology, I write about it. After having some "wins" while getting started in web development as a side venture, I wanted to share my experiences, I needed to. "Maybe people who learn from my experiences will get the thrill of victory I did as well, wouldn't that be nice", I thought. So I resolved to writing, from tutorials, to review articles, to personal rants and much more is yet to be explored. This excited me then and excites me even more now. I've written about pieces of technology I've enjoyed using such as Hey - a different take on email by 37Signals; web-dev tutorials such as the one on JavaScript Objects and another on the Basics of Markdown; rants such as Why I Write. For me, this is an outlet, more than anything else. Although all that is important, veerry important to be precise, let's shift our sights to a particular by-product of writing - clarity, which births the freedom this piece has so tactfully evaded talking about till now. I'd call them, the by-product and the by-by-product. My writing is often spontaneous - in the rush of the fanaticism and excitement. Like when I wrote about Hey. Other times, I write when I'm battling a myriad of thoughts like I am currently as I write this piece. It is a Saturday afternoon at work, and like the norm, the workload at such a time is reduced to a minimum and the motivation to clear the remainder of the work quashed by the slow moving hours. Today in particular, most offices sit empty in silence and as I pick up my bag to pack and leave as well, I noticed something - silence, peace, finally. So I sit myself back down, pick up and press atop my mechanical pencil for a fresh extension of graphite and the source a fresh sheet of plain A4 paper from my file. With the silence so audible and my mind caught up in the peace, I let my thoughts race and my wrist slide from left to write right. Although there's a touch of spontaneity in my writing, it isn't always about "lightbulb" moment to paper. It's mostly a process of getting an idea, trying to shake it off, some leave, some are quite stubborn and so I get fixated on those ones; continually digesting the concepts and ideas behind the subject matter, which can take a few hours to a day or two. By this time, I'm itching to be listened to and so I get a pencil and paper and I let loose. As I pour all my thoughts to the poor sheet of paper, I make the point of pruning the nonsensical ideas that try to sneak into the piece. I determine this by thinking as I write and some ideas are straight up not right while others are heavily based on personal bias. These have to go. GPTs and Google also lend a helping hand as clarifiers for confusing concepts. When I am done with my pencil and paper, I pretty much have a piece supported by facts (mostly

Feb 15, 2025 - 19:25

Picture this:

"You have an office or study desk. You've been wanting to tidy your space, get the deodorant, comb, rough papers, piles of useless books and a piece of yesterday's chips off the table, give it a proper wipe and get more work done in a clean, clutter-free desk setup."

Well, believe it or not, that's exactly how your mind works as well. Information clutter brings about confusion, stress, forgetfulness, uncertainty, and the list of negatives goes on and on.

So let's organize our thoughts here and start from the beginning.

My name is Joseph Ochego and I am a mechanical ~~engineer~~ draughtsman - "draftsman" enUS by day, and a web dev by night. As a consequence of my love for technology, I write about it. After having some "wins" while getting started in web development as a side venture, I wanted to share my experiences, I needed to. "Maybe people who learn from my experiences will get the thrill of victory I did as well, wouldn't that be nice", I thought.

So I resolved to writing, from tutorials, to review articles, to personal rants and much more is yet to be explored. This excited me then and excites me even more now. I've written about pieces of technology I've enjoyed using such as Hey - a different take on email by 37Signals; web-dev tutorials such as the one on JavaScript Objects and another on the Basics of Markdown; rants such as Why I Write. For me, this is an outlet, more than anything else.

Although all that is important, veerry important to be precise, let's shift our sights to a particular by-product of writing - clarity, which births the freedom this piece has so tactfully evaded talking about till now. I'd call them, the by-product and the by-by-product.

My writing is often spontaneous - in the rush of the fanaticism and excitement. Like when I wrote about Hey. Other times, I write when I'm battling a myriad of thoughts like I am currently as I write this piece.

It is a Saturday afternoon at work, and like the norm, the workload at such a time is reduced to a minimum and the motivation to clear the remainder of the work quashed by the slow moving hours. Today in particular, most offices sit empty in silence and as I pick up my bag to pack and leave as well, I noticed something - silence, peace, finally. So I sit myself back down, pick up and press atop my mechanical pencil for a fresh extension of graphite and the source a fresh sheet of plain A4 paper from my file. With the silence so audible and my mind caught up in the peace, I let my thoughts race and my wrist slide from left to ~~write~~ right.

Although there's a touch of spontaneity in my writing, it isn't always about "lightbulb" moment to paper. It's mostly a process of getting an idea, trying to shake it off, some leave, some are quite stubborn and so I get fixated on those ones; continually digesting the concepts and ideas behind the subject matter, which can take a few hours to a day or two. By this time, I'm itching to be listened to and so I get a pencil and paper and I let loose.

As I pour all my thoughts to the poor sheet of paper, I make the point of pruning the nonsensical ideas that try to sneak into the piece. I determine this by thinking as I write and some ideas are straight up not right while others are heavily based on personal bias. These have to go.

GPTs and Google also lend a helping hand as clarifiers for confusing concepts.

When I am done with my pencil and paper, I pretty much have a piece supported by facts (mostly