Just Start

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If you’re reading the web version of this edition of Pastimes soon after it was published, look around. The website is very bare bones. It won’t win any design awards anytime soon. (Yes, yes, a logo and such is high on my to-do list.)

But it is here. It exists. A thing I’ve been meaning to get going for quite some time is a reality.

Sure, external forces nudged me toward finally establishing Pastimes. But it’s live.

It doesn’t matter that it looks pretty bare. The aesthetic will improve with time. The important thing is that I took that step I so often don’t.

I started.

My Own Worst Enemy

I can be horribly, dreadfully lazy. Procrastination is my de facto mode. I’ve long said, only semi-jokingly, that the title of my debut album would be A Problem For Future Me.

I have a very laid-back personality too. “A” was not the letter I was handed on my personality type card when they were handing those out at the factory.

Not only that, I’m a self-saboteur, a person who often lacks in confidence, an overthinker and a dreamer with more ideas than I have the time, energy or resources to execute. (I’m not looking for any sympathy here, just stating some relevant facts.)

Needless to say, my life is littered with abandoned concepts, dreams that have faded into the mist, ambitions that have withered like a dehydrated plant at the height of summer. Indecisiveness, a reluctance to push myself, a fear of failure are factors that have stopped me from reaching my full potential. I get too comfortable too easily as well.

That’s not to say I haven’t done okay for myself. I’ve eked out a decent career. I don’t have any debt and I’m fortunate enough to be on relatively sturdy financial ground for the first time in my life. I have enough of a cushion to get by for a while if work dries up.

I was smart enough (not to brag, just to illustrate my point) that I didn’t have to work hard in school and university. I rarely did more than the bare minimum and still always got good grades — something that annoyed one of my high school teachers to no end because she was frustrated that I didn’t apply myself as much as I could.

Even now, I deeply enjoy the work I’m doing for the most part. It comes pretty naturally to me, and I try to make it as fun for myself as possible. I am generally happy where I am at, work-wise.

For the most part, I have coasted through the last couple of decades. Doing things the easy way has, until now, worked out quite well for me.

But that has meant foregoing opportunities that could have led to great things. Turning down offers because pursuing them would have meant putting in more time and effort. All to stay safe in my cocoon.

But I’m tired of that. I’m looking to start things. To have new experiences. To forge new friendships and connections.

I took a step in that direction in December, when I started a Discord server for readers of my Connections hints and answers column on Forbes (and now here on weekends!) to get together and hang out with me and each other.

Spending time there with a bunch of really lovely people has been easily one of the biggest highlights of this year so far. I never could have imagined what starting to write about an often-frustrating game I liked would turn into, how life-changing (I promise you I’m not underselling that) it would be.

That’s because I started something.

The Connections column was pretty basic at first. Primarily to make it more enjoyable to write every day, I started including an introduction that featured an anecdote, something that was going on in my life or an issue that percolated in my mind. Whatever I wrote, I always made sure it was authentic and (whenever possible) coming from a place of empathy. I started including a daily recommendation at the end — sometimes a movie, game or slice of advice but usually a song.

Then the emails and messages started coming in.

A least a few a week from readers telling me how much they enjoyed the intros and recommendations. Others said they’d read the column even if they didn’t need any hints, because it was like checking in with a friend to see how they worked through that day’s game of Connections. A few folks even made a point to remind me that what I was doing mattered, even if I didn’t always see it that way.

Every single one of those notes meant the world to me. They made my day each and every time I received one. Eventually, they led me to believe that we had a bit of a community starting, even if its members weren’t necessarily aware of each other.

And so I realized I should start the Discord server. I’m so delighted with how everything’s gone there so far. Other than gentle reminders to a few folks to make sure they’re posting something in the right place (we’re very sensitive about spoilers in particular!), we’ve had very little negativity to deal with. I kicked out one obvious troll, and there have been some other minor issues (thanks for handling them, Ern, you’re the best).

Still, I’m so happy that there have been so few problems. That’s quite astonishing for a group with nearly 1,500 members — a number that also blows my mind.

Getting this Discord up and running is one of the best decisions I’ve made in a long time. Its success gave me some confidence that I could start another new thing and that it would work out.

That brings us to Pastimes. I won’t rehash what I wrote in the introduction post. I will say that I have lofty goals and plans for this thing, but I’m keeping my expectations modest. Like the Connections column and Discord server, I plan for Pastimes to grow and evolve over time. That’s exciting to me.

Pastimes is an atom in the ocean night now. I don’t really know for sure how it’s going to evolve out of the internet’s primordial soup.

The most important thing at this moment in time is that, after thinking about spinning this up for years, it’s here.

I started it.

I can’t wait to see where it goes. But it never would have gone anywhere if I hadn’t started.

I have other things I aim to do in the near future. First and foremost, I need to lose some weight for health reasons. I suspect doing so will bolster my confidence, and help me finally do things I’ve long wanted to, like joining an improv group and taking acting lessons. I want to take guitar and singing lessons too (I did musical theater and was in bands as a kid and miss performing, but more on that another day). I should probably make a more serious attempt at learning French too!

One positive thing begets another. So I want to say this:

Stop dreaming about the thing you’ve always wanted to do. Stop putting it off. Stop making excuses.

Even if it’s in the smallest way you can possibly can, begin to work on your big project, your goal, your ambition.

Just start. You never know where you’ll end up going.

That’s it for this first non-Connections edition of Pastimes! Thanks for reading. I hope you take away something positive from it.

If you think someone else would find it interesting or helpful, please share this with them! I hope that, together, we can grow Pastimes together into something cooler than I can even imagine. Word of mouth is the absolute best way anyone can help with that at this stage.

For the time being, my plan is to write an essay/other non-Connections edition (there has to be a catchier name) of Pastimes every two weeks. In my heart, I’d love to do more — and aim to eventually — but I’m really trying to get the work-life balance right.

Anyway, I’d like Pastimes to be a community. A place for conversation. It should not just be a place for me to share my thoughts. I want to hear from and include your perspectives too. That might include guest posts in the not-too-distant future (I don’t get to edit other writers as often as I’d like!).

Unless something happens over the next two weeks that prompts me to write about something else, my plan for next time — oh no, here we go — is to write about the rapid rise of generative AI systems and why the likes of ChatGPT warrant the utmost scrutiny and skepticism. That Grok suddenly could not shut up about “white genocide” over on Twitter is only one reason.

If you have some questions about AI stuff that I can try to answer for you, please do send them over. And if you have anything you’d like to say about AI that you’d like to share with the rest of the Pastimes community, absolutely feel free to drop me a line too. Just hit reply if you’re reading this via email, leave a comment, send me a message on Discord or contact me at [email protected].

Have a great day! Stay hydrated! Call someone you love!

Kris xo

P.S. Gonna round this out the only way I really know how anymore, with a recommendation. It’s hard to think of a song that better encapsulates the spirit of adventure and the value of taking chances than “Born to be Wild.”