Cringe Means Successful Evolution

For the past few blog posts, I find myself discover back and forth about more or less the same things. Am I just going to ramble on and on about the same things? I don’t think so. That’s when I thought of the idea to do a 100 days experiment to really see how far I can stretch my ability to write. “Writing ability” is such an abstract concept. I have been told by different professors and teachers throughout the years all kinds of definitions about what good writing may look like, and I sort of sheltered myself in those standards as a safe way to earn their approval. As a foreign speaker who switched her standard operating language abruptly in middle school, I was driven by this imposter syndrome to always follow strict language rules, because I didn’t want to look funny in front of my classmates.

My previous experiences taught my baby English brain to go from climbing to walking. My ability to “walk” in the English language helped me turn in all kinds of paper as a college student and earned me a college degree in humanities. Now that I have graduated, I want to evolve to the next level: to run, jump, or even dance with my words and sentences.

(I try to write at cute cafes.)

In this 100 days experiment, I am going to show up and just write freely everyday. It’s going to operate in this space where I let the words flow, but I’m also going to be observing the tones and voices that are coming through. It’s sort of an introspective process — the foundation of a writer’s initial self discovery. Of course I’m going to suck at first, especially when I’m trying to be a little more adventurous and explore new angles not yet familiar to me.

I hesitated a little whether I should put this on my blog for people to see publicly (not a lot of people know this blog exists yet, though, so that’s the self-absorbed part of me being paranoid lol). What if I cringe at all this horrible stuff in the future? This thought sparked some anxiety in me initially, but I quickly changed my mind to think that these 100 entries are just the equivalent of a notebook filled with rough sketches. My friends who went to art school would draw hundreds of sketches everyday to gain the knack of drawing the perfect human body. As a writer, I also adopt the same spirit to feel closer to the voice I actually want to speak from.

My goal, really, is that by the time I finish my 100th entry, I want to look back at my first few and cringe as much as possible. Cringe is a sign of victory, because it means I have evolved with rocket speed within the span of 100 days. In the spirit of this whole exercise, cringe means successful evolution.

As I had mentioned, not a lot of people know about this blog yet. So I am taking this opportunity to interact with people, welcoming feedback from all corners of the internet to help me grow. I hope we can share a memorable 100 days together. If we complete this challenge, that would be more that a three months relationship! A whole lot of romantic relationships don’t make it through the 100 days mark, so I can say we will be pretty proud of ourselves by the end of it.

with love,

Ingrid