Howdy.

I’ve been writing a lot more over the past year - in fact, I’ve written at least once a week, and this is article number 60 within the past year. I did this for many reasons: to get better at writing, to get out of a creative rut, play around with different writing voices, but also because I wanted to move my blog from a dry tech blog to something I myself am a little more excited about.

I started this blog in 2012, documenting my experiences with various programming tools and coding languages. I felt like I contributed by sharing tutorials, and having some public technical artifacts helped during job searches.

Over the years I branched out - short reviews for books I’ve read, recounts of my travel (and turning my Prius into a car camper to do so), notes on personal finance… All of this shares a theme: descriptive writing.

I feel most confident describing and recounting events and putting together tutorials. It’s easy to verify if I’m wrong - an event either happened or didn’t, the tool either worked - or didn’t. And I was there the whole time. That kind of writing doesn’t take much soul and grit, and while it’s pretty good at drawing traffic to the site (eh, which is something I don’t particularly care about anymore), I wouldn’t call it particularly fulfilling. Creatively, at least.

I’m scared to share opinions, because opinions vary and don’t have ground truth. It’s easier to be completely wrong, or to look like a fool. I don’t want to be criticised for my writing. Privacy is a matter too - despite writing publicly, I consider myself to be a private person.

So, after 13 years of descriptive writing, I made an effort to experiment in 2025. I wrote down some notes on parenthood, my thoughts on AI and Warhammer, nostalgia, identity, ego… I wrote about writing, too.

It’s been a scary transition, and it still is. I have to fight myself to avoid putting together yet another tutorial or an observation on modal interfaces. I’ve been somewhat successful though, as I even wrote a piece on my anxiety about sharing opinions.

But descriptive writing continues sneaking in, trying to reclaim the field.

You see, I write under my own name. I like the authenticity this affords me, and it’s nice not having to make a secret blog (which I will eventually accidentally leak, knowing my forgetfulness). I mean this blog has been running for 14 years now, that’s gotta count for something.

But writing under my own name also presents a major problem. It’s my real name. If you search for “Ruslan Osipov”, my site’s at the top. I don’t hide who I am, and you can quickly confirm my identity by going to my about page. This means that friends, colleagues, neighbors, bosses, government officials - anyone - can easily find my writing. If there are people out there who don’t like me - for whatever reason - they can read my stuff too.

The more I write, the more I learn that good writing is 1) passionate and 2) vulnerable (it’s also well structured, but I have no intention of restructuring this essay - so you’ll just have to sit with my fragmented train of thought).

It’s easy to write about things I’m passionate about. I get passionate about everything I get involved in - from parenting and housework to my work. I write this article in Vim, and I’m passionate enough about that to write a book on the subject.

Vulnerability is hard. Good writing is raw, it makes the author feel things, and leaves little bits and pieces of the author scattered on the page. You just can’t fake authenticity. But here’s the thing - real life is messy. Babies throw tantrums, work gets stressful, the world changes in the ways you might not like. That isn’t something you want the whole world to know.

Especially if that world involves a prospective employer, for example. So you have to put up a facade, and filter topics that could pose risk. I’m no fool: I’m not going to criticize the company that pays me money. I like getting paid money, it buys food, diapers, and video games.

I still think it’s a bit weird and restrictive that a future recruiter is curating my writing today. The furthest I’m willing to push the envelope here is my essay on corporate jobs and self-worth.

Curation happens to more than the work-related topics of course. And that might even be a good thing. I don’t just reminisce about my upbringing. It’s a brief jumping off point into my obsession with productivity. Curation is just good taste. You’re not getting my darkest, messiest, snottiest remarks. You’re getting a loosely organized, tangentially related set of ideas. Finding that gradient has been exciting.

So, here’s what I won’t write about. I won’t share too many details about our home life. I won’t complain about a bad day at work. I won’t badmouth people.

But I will write about what those things feel like - the tiredness, the frustration, the ego.