You have to pick the places you don’t walk away from. But you also have to pick the places you do walk away from. Usually, the faster you do the latter, the better.
My insatiable curiosity – about books, ideas, projects, etc. – is probably both my best and my worst trait.
Every now and then, I become possessed by a new idea that so potently captures my interest that I lose sight of all current projects that I have on my plate. When I flirt with this new thing, I start to imagine how, when it’s finished, it will suddenly catapult my unpopular self into the mountaintops where talked-about writers hang out and drink their organic tea.
Yes, sure, there is also a desire for this project to help people, but let’s not pretend I’m immune to the common societal desires. I’m only human, and I too love when I’m praised and given recognition.
The grim reality about being constantly preoccupied with new ideas is that, as simple as it sounds, you’re always constantly preoccupied with new ideas.
Plainly, this means that you’re forever in shipping mode:
You ship A, and once A is finished, you move on to ship B. Then once all the craze revolving around B dies off – or even before that – you move on to work towards shipping C.
In the process, you are never satisfied. Never pleased with yourself. You are relentlessly chasing this new thing, never glad about the things you’ve already done, or the one you’re currently doing.
Before my current website, durmonski.com, I started and abandoned a handful of others sites – roughly around 8. All of them miserably failed, but they miserably failed because I miserably failed. And I failed at one very important aspect when it comes down to longevity.
That is, embracing sameness.
The Struggle to Embrace Sameness
It’s very hard to remain focused on your current project. The default reaction when you’re doing something for a decent amount of time is for your enthusiasm to fade. And when your enthusiasm fades, you begin to look for other things to do.
This is especially true in our current times.
Daily, we are exposed to announcements about new things that are seemingly far better than the things we already have/do. And if the sheer volume of updates about new inventions is not enough, there is something else: other people. I bet that most of your friends and relatives are also strong advocates about new trends and new products, which makes it even harder for you to maintain focus.
But even if you somehow resist the mad crowd trying to infect your cognitive system with their never-ending craze about the latest hip thing, there is also the unconscious drives of your own psyche. To me, this can be described as a machine that generates desire. Our inner nature pushes us towards endless striving for novelty.
Simply put:
You do/get one thing, and shortly after that, you’re once again on the treadmill, chasing yet another thing.
The following quote by Arthur Schopenhauer perfectly captures what I’m trying to convey:
“Life swings like a pendulum backward and forward between pain and boredom.” Arthur Schopenhauer
The pain comes from not having what we want. When this is the case, we suffer. Life feels like an endless grind. We work hard, but only because we believe that once we obtain our goal, we’ll be finally satisfied.
Yet, what happens when we do achieve our goal? When we do get what we want?
Instead of endless joy, we are overtaken by boredom.
Boredom is the consequence of obtaining what we want.
Every time we satisfy a desire, we’re left facing an empty void, which leads to boredom. Which in turn leads to more desires and suffering due to not yet having what we supposedly want.
Tragically, we suffer no matter what we do.
We suffer when we don’t have what we want, but then we also suffer when we do have what we want.
We’re constantly in this cycle of suffering, and this is the core human condition.
What the above has to do with my website?
Let me explain…
My Struggle to Focus on One Particular Topic
My experience with my old websites is an excellent starting point to discuss the psychological flaw we all have.
As I just mentioned above, my previous sites catastrophically failed. But they failed because I failed to maintain them. And I failed to maintain them because I was no longer excited about the topics they were originally created for.
For example, one project that was doing fairly well was about WordPress themes and plugins. The idea was fairly simple. You have a website, but you are not sure what type of membership plugin,for example, to add. Here come my reviews, showing you the pros, the cons, and also steps to install the various types of membership plugins.
But as my natural stupidity slowly faded and moved to somehow average brain capacity due to (probably) the books I was reading, I was no longer interested in such shallow topics.
Through writing, I wanted to explore more complicated issues we all struggle with. Concepts like: how to find purpose in life, why we buy things we don’t need, why there is a never-ending battle between the lower self and the higher self, etc.
Armed with this knowledge, I registered durmonski.com, thinking that I’m cured of abandoning projects.
I remembered that I said to myself, “I’ll use my last name for this new site because this will help me keep maintaining it. After all, it’s one thing to abandon a site about random tools that no one will remember in a few years, it’s quite another to abandon a site about yourself.”
The idea about a site with my name was fairly simple from the start: Create a personal blog where I explore different ideas and share my thoughts.
In theory, it sounded like I knew what I was going to publish. In practice, it wasn’t like that at all. I changed my focus at least several times.
Before my site became what it is today, it went through a variety of topics and updates. Like a child in a toy store, I was pulled in different directions. Unable to commit to writing about one particular field.
To portray this better, let me take you through some of the topic shifts I did over the years on my website:
At first, durmonski.com was covering mainly one subject: minimalism.1 I was emulating the guys who run the site TheMinimalists.com and the early days of Matt D’avella – who also changed directions numerous times.
After that, somehow still inspired by the just-mentioned, I decided that I wanted to interview people and share the conversations on my site. (I know, like everyone else!)
Then, I got tired of the above two topics, and I decided that I should do book summaries – like I still do today. I figured that since I love books, I might as well share my notes with the world.
While book summaries persisted, I was still searching. Still unable to commit to a specific topic. I was looking at what other creators were doing, and plotting ways to copy their style and structure, thinking that my own perspective is somehow flawed.
This led to starting and abandoning many projects that hindered my focus.
Some of these are:
- At some point, I was really excited about academic journals – you know, like the ones you’ll find on sites like jstor.org. But if you have ever read those, you know how unreadable they are – especially for ordinary humans with limited brain capacity, like me. Thus, I decided that I’ll reuse my skills with the book summaries and create layman summaries of these academic journals. The result? Only 1 lay summary was ever published.
- Then I got obsessed with writing a book on how to use the internet. Because, you know, we suck at this. We only use the internet to further cripple ourselves – by constantly checking social media, buying things we don’t really need, etc. – instead of using it to make tomorrow a little better. The result? I sold only 3 copies and eventually completely removed the page.
- Then we have my Thinkers Club – I reinvented my membership a couple of years ago, only to return it to what you see today.
- One more strange detour: Manuals for Mortals. The idea here was that instead of writing one article, I will publish several that will cover a specific topic in depth. The result? Only one of those was published. Since I didn’t want to lose the content when I got tired of the idea, I simply created a series of articles – which should have been the initial concept (see here: Why Social Media is Toxic?).
- Course on self-discipline – still on my site and part of my membership.
- Courses on habits and decision-making – I thought that only one course was not enough, so I decided to add two more based on topics I have the most experience with.
I don’t know what you think about the above. Whether that’s a lot of detours or not that much. Yet, keep in mind that these are only the projects I actually materialized. There was a lot more going on in the background.
I had an idea about a new project, probably every couple of months. Not to mention the work I did behind the scenes to test the validity of some of them.
All of this brings me to my most recent idea, which, both sadly and thankfully, I abandoned before releasing it to the public.
The idea was fairly simple: Create a digital journaling experience.
You see, I love notebooks and note-taking.
Furthermore, I know that a lot of people hoard journals and end up not using them because they don’t know what to write inside.
How to help them?
Sure, I can provide a bunch of journaling prompts. But the usual way you do this is by dumping these prompts on a website and hoping that the person won’t scroll down into oblivion.
So I thought: What if I present the journaling prompts one by one, as you flip through the pages of a journal? But in this case, a digital journal. Imagine this like a slideshow, where each slide is a page of a journal.
Actually, go take a look; I’ve recorded a video of how it looked as an experience on the website: Guided Journal On What You Want Out of Life.
It may sound immodest, but I’m really proud of how this turned out. Especially when you know what the current solutions are.
Most people who have sites/channels about journals, notebooks, and the power of writing on paper, just leave you with a handful of prompts and they move away.
Mine? I give you a unique online experience where you flip through a journal with prompts at your own pace without being distracted by a swarm of ads.
And while it might not seem revolutionary, it’s something I always wanted to exist because…
A YouTube philosopher drops an inspiring set of questions that should change your life? Good luck using them in your daily writing. You’d have to pause the video every 3 seconds to rewrite from the screen while simultaneously dodging obnoxious ads, and resisting the primal urge to click on the next video.
Or maybe you stumbled across a blogger who dumped a collection of “can’t-live-without” journaling prompts, and now you think you’ll finally use them in your fancy-pants, overpriced notebook? I bet you will unceremoniously scroll past them without giving them proper attention.
What happened with this project?
Well, I spent in total of 3 months on the idea before killing it. The funny thing here is that…
- Based on my research, I believe there is a crowd of people who will enjoy what I’ve created.
- I found an inexpensive way to create the actual journaling experience on my site.
- I have a rich backlog of ideas about thematic journals – meaning that I have a lot of stuff for content.
- The project is fully ready for launch.
Why then shut it down?
The stark reminder that resources are scarce.
Resources Are Scarce
It’s very easy to start new things. I can hook you up with a decent-looking website in an hour or so. I’m positive that you can create a social media account even faster and start dancing for the algorithm or do whatever is the trendiest thing these days. Yet, is starting enough for this project/idea to flourish?
Not at all.
The default when you’re starting something is that nobody cares. Your job is to make people care. But along with that, you have to do something extra: you have to make sure that you also won’t stop caring.
The final component plays a significant role in determining whether your project succeeds or fails.
But there are other things:
- You have to overcome your natural tendency to want to start something new every month.
- You have to motivate yourself to keep caring even when nobody else cares.
- Your efforts required to keep the project moving forward have to be sustainable.
Let’s expand these a bit further…
I decided not to launch my latest project about online journals because I started to feel how my enthusiasm slowly started to fade. Which is a problem.
After all, the nature of this new idea involved constantly adding new journals. If I really wanted to make it work, I knew that I had to ship probably a journal a month.
But how can I ship a journal a month since I only work on my site during mornings?
If I had to make it work, this implied that I had to write less often and design journals instead.
But what happens when I skip writing?
- My site is not updated.
- People who visit don’t return.
- People not reading my site will lead to me feeling underappreciated, sad, unvalidated.
- I will conclude my work as useless.
- I will feel fed up about myself and about my life.
Besides, the writing part has now turned into an important part of my life. I simply love writing.
So, based on these reflections, instead of trying to do more things on my site, I decided to do less.
And this is not only for my sanity, but for the sanity of the people stopping by to read my stuff.
Because imagine how a person visiting my site will feel?
Overwhelmed? Sure.
Distracted and unable to figure out what to focus on? Absolutely!
If I represent this with an image, this is how my work will look when I do a couple of different projects compared to doing only one:
And this also applies to some degree to the people reading.
Do people really want one more type of content on my site?
I’m doubtful.
People don’t need one more course, one more seminar, or one more checklist. They need more time to focus on what’s most important for them.
A lot of site owners start adding different types of projects, courses, communities, discord groups, etc., to their websites with the presumption that people have time for them.
For example, an email course that will send you actionable insights about a specific topic every day. Or, a website with a membership option where the main selling point is access to a “like-minded community.”
In theory, these all sound great. In practice, not so much.
Personally, when I sign up for email courses, I get fed up by the third email because I still haven’t fully read and applied the first lessons. Thus, I start to feel anxious that there are more incoming lessons.
As for sites offering access to a Discord server or something similar, where should I begin? I have a lot to say, but let’s keep it tight. First, there is rarely any meaningful discussion in these groups. Even if there is, membership chats often start to look like a ghost town only after a couple of months. After all, people who purchase such types of memberships are usually folks who are motivated to progress in the world. And since this is the case, these people don’t have the time to chat all day long and create content for the site owner.
The point, I figured, is not bombarding people, myself included, with more stuff. But deciding what should be the one thing I take seriously.
Asking Myself What Am I Serious About
When I was considering whether I should kill my latest project, I asked myself this simple question: How far am I willing to go with this?
The answer flowed naturally: Not that far.
As mentioned, I was already sensing that I’m losing interest. Not that I’ll abandon journaling as an activity – I’ve been doing it for over 10 years now. I was simply losing interest in relation to the whole process involved in the creation of the journals.
After all, simply because I’m doing something daily doesn’t mean that it’s good enough material for my site.
For instance, I exercise and I draw daily with my son, does that mean that I should offer workouts or drawing lessons? Obviously not.
Conversely, when I thought about how far I want to go with writing about topics that I consider important. About topics I believe can help both me as a writer and the people who partially (or not) care about what I want to say, the answer was a loud “very far!”.
This site was founded in 2018. Before that, as I already mentioned, I had a couple of other sites.
The common “thing” between all of these projects has always been me writing.
I consider it painful to not be writing.
Writing, for me, is the thing that keeps me optimistic about life itself.
Sure, creating courses and the journaling guides I mentioned is also a form of writing, but it’s not the same.
As a passionate reader, I get approximately a new idea for an article per page.
To be honest, it’s kind of painful at this point. When I’m reading good books from authors like Erick Fromm or Robert Greene, I annotate almost all the passages with hints about how I can use a particular paragraph from the page for an article. At some point in the book, I forcefully stop myself from continuing because my mind is flooded with a wide array of writing concepts. Which is good. But it also feels bad because I, like everyone else, have limited time.
Since I have other obligations, I can’t transform all the ideas I get from books into articles in this very instant. Thus, I either stop reading the book, or I start over to ensure that I’ll keep the writing ideas I just discovered on top of my mind.
The above is the main reason I actually stopped finishing books – i.e., treated in, I Went from Reading 40 Books a Year to Reading 0. I’m now more focused on exploring the ideas from good books deeper, as opposed to just hopping from book to book for the sake of reaching some arbitrary number of finished books for the year.
All of this brings me to the question: What am I serious about?
Since I can’t do it all, I figured that I should better define what I do want to do.
The answer, after considering it for some time, is the following:
I am serious about inspiring other people to advance through serious problems.
I am serious about the exploration of topics concerning first principles, with the grand aim of supporting people who prefer to unplug from the collective madness.
Can I be more clear?
Let’s try…
Collectively, we failed on an intellectual level. We failed because the vast majority of the population is now subscribed to the notion that a good life consists of optimizing for pleasure. Thus, the world is in a full retardation swing. People are obsessing over shallow topics, locked in a motionless existence where watching 5-second clips is the norm, and spending all of their available resources to build an image representing perfection – while internally these same individuals are full of doubt.
We are no longer trying to produce meaningful work or to upgrade our communities. We are solely seeking to feed our undying appetite for pleasure, while simultaneously making sure that everyone in our surroundings knows that we are having a “good time.”
The result?
- We consume what everyone else is consuming.
- We think what everyone else is thinking.
- We do what everyone else is doing.
But at the same time, we crave authenticity and meaning.
Some of us already realize this. Others are still oblivious to the fact that material possessions won’t lead to happiness. That’s why they keep hoarding items and never want to unplug from the algorithm feeding them content that supports their already wicked thinking patterns.
Plainly, the current world is weird. And I think that it’s going to get even weirder.
I’m serious about discussing important topics that can ignite the enthusiasm of people who are struggling to get started, and at the same time renew the enthusiasm of people who are struggling to keep going.
Because it’s hard to stand apart. To disengage from what society considers important. Our impulses urge us to fit in. We want to be accepted and admired. But have you considered the cost for this?
The idea about the life we want to live vanishes in the vast swamp of our peers, who tell us persistently that living is an act of abandoning our own interests for the interests of the crowd.
I want my writing to serve as a burning torch that endorses your deep-rooted interests, not betraying them. Help people who read mold themselves based on what they want, not based on what the mad crowd wants.
All of the above means that I don’t want to do more different things, I want to do more of the same things – writing about important topics that invoke desire for action in the person reading.
Some Closing Thoughts
I believe that everyone who considers himself a creator goes through what I’m going through.
You start a blog, a YouTube channel, a SaaS company – you name it.
At first, even doing the ordinary things is exciting – you publish articles, you record videos, you polish your initial product vision to improve the user experience.
But after the first year – sometimes sooner, sometimes later – the ordinary things no longer seem cool.
You want to do something bigger. You want to do something more exciting. And more so, you believe that the people who follow your work also expect from you to announce a more ambitious project.
Thus, you probably abandon doing what you’ve been good at, and you start working on that big idea: a course of some sort, a big book project, an exciting new feature that will take you months to develop and after that years to maintain.
It’s done. Your new thing is ready. You enthusiastically share it with the world, only to realize that few people actually care about it.
What do you do then?
You start to dream even bigger!
“Probably I need to make an even more elaborate course, or the features should be even more complicated, etc., etc.”
The results?
Again, not enough people care.
Of course, there are exceptions to this. If you are a big company like Apple, you have to keep innovating to ensure you don’t fall behind even if not enough people care about your latest project.2
Yet, for people who write on websites, or upload videos on YouTube, or run not that complicated products. I now believe that the more stuff you add, the worse your offering will seem to the people who adore you.
At some point, or at least this is true for me, you make a full circle.
I started this blog with the intention to share my own personal story.
Then I tried to complicate it by adding a bunch of other stuff.
And now, I’m back again to simply wanting to share my story.
Will enough people care?
I think yes. But only if I continue to care.
Hopefully, I’ll be disciplined enough to keep doing what I love doing – writing. And strong enough to resist all the nudges that prompt me to start new things.
Escape Triviality. Lean Towards Creativity
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Footnotes:
- I probably had more than 20 articles on this topic. Now I have only a handful of publications about minimalism.
- As what happened to the Apple Vision Pro. The product is amazing, but nobody wants one.
