Why I write this stuff...

I've been asked on more than one occasion why I write this stuff. Why do I bother? In short, who the hell are you to tell me what to do?

There are a list of answers for those questions-- a much larger list than there are questions. Before I share that list with you, let me correct the most aggressive one above:

Who am I to say what you should do?

It is a misunderstanding of the purpose of both the site and the VolksarU project generally. If you've read the whole blog, you'll have heard me mention on more than one occasion, "You can go to hell in your own way." I think that making your own mistakes is everyone's privilege. Still, when a large number of people have tackled the same problem and everyone discovers by trial and error that there are some basic principles which solve the same problem, it seems a shame to waste the collective wisdom.

In times past, that type of wisdom got written down in a central location that people could learn from, or became a oral tradition in the form of a cliche', such as "Chrome won't get you home..."

With the advent of the Internet, a million blogs, forums and etc., we have no central source for these observations, even if they don't necessarily rise to the level of wisdom. This means that we draw increasingly on un-compared data: Maria says it works, Max said it's crap, and there's no way to tell who's right or even what contexts their observations come from. Maria and Max may be trying to solve a similar problem in two different contexts, which is why they get different results. Maria's solution works and Max's doesn't...because Max is at sea-level and Maria is in Mexico City at 7300 ft above sea level. Those points of context are missed and so we just have another 'he said, she said' disagreement about observed phenomenon with the context missing.

So that's most of why I write: not just to tell you what I did while I worked this project. but to condense all of the research that I did to get to my answer so that you know my context.

Now if you want to write about your project too, let me forewarn you of some fears you'll have to conquer to document your project and show it to the world.

1. That you're not qualified to write this material.

You have chosen this subject, or it has chosen you. It is intimately tied up with your passions and your philosophy about how the world should work. That makes you as qualified as as any human needs to be to share their passion.

2. That you have nothing new to contribute to the world. 

If I thought that I had to say it better than anyone else, I'd never have started. Of course, you have something unique to say: You tell the story of the triangulation of you and your project and your context. That makes your story unique in the world.

3. That whatever form you're writing in feels too difficult.

Fear is the expected response in the face of something challenging and complex. If it were easy, you wouldn't become a better communicator by working through the process of recording and describing it all.

4. That you don't have enough time to write this stuff down; just doing it is hard enough!

If you are serious about this project, you will find a way to re-order your priorities and then cut out the unimportant things to make time to write it down. If you're not serious about the project (just the doing of it!) then you're not ready to do it, let alone write about it. Writing about it will let you find mistakes in your project that you can correct before you flip the switch; the benefit is both for you and for others. Writing down the details as you go also automatically generates a parts list for replacement, as well as a cost list

5. That you don't even know where the project is headed, even in the middle of it.

Keep taking notes and condensing them into descriptions and observations. Read back what you wrote and learn from it. ("Whoa, made a big assumption there! Better double check that!) You'll get better and faster at identifying and correcting mistakes, so fast that you'll correct them during planning or implementation, not after you've already built it.

6. That you're not a good enough writer to accomplish your goal.

None of us is good enough to finish a project when we start. I certainly wasn't qualified to do much of the restoration work I did on my 1972 Super Beetle when I started. By the time we finish, though, we have become competent by the practice of doing it. Not just the task...but the ability to describe it it others.

7. That no one will read you work.

Someone WILL read your work. Just get on with the story you are telling: the challenges, the setbacks, the triumphs, the lessons learned. Then trust that your creation will be found by people who need it the most and they will be grateful that you took the time.

8. That when this project is done, you will have exhausted all of your words and ideas.

Phooey. You might be temporarily exhausted by the end of the project and convinced that if you never write another word on the subject it will be too soon. Never fear! The more you write about your passions, the more it keeps your muse coming back. If you have the creative impulse to make something new or recover something old, you have the creative impulse to tell others about it. You might switch from VWs to restoring vintage lawn mowers (it could happen!) Having talked through the subject in a public forum, you'll be that much more practiced, more confident, and more capable talking about your new passion in a new forum. 

Bonus: People will appreciate you.

There will always be inevitable haters.You're writing on earth, not for the angels or for a crowd of completely rational, unemotional Vulcans. Mostly the haters will drop their turd-load on your work and then fly off, convinced they've 'shown you.' They rarely come around for another pass. Mostly the people who follow your work will do so (IF YOU DON'T GET ANYTHING ELSE, GET THIS!) because you're the only one out there doing it. Consider: How many times have you seen someone show 'before' and 'after' and leave out the three years in-between that actually tell you the story of how it all happened? You ask for advice, or details, or how-to...and get back either nothing, or the brush-off. 

When you describe the process you went through, especially when it was a learning process, SHARE! The sum total of knowledge in a community is made greater when people share. If you clutch your new skills and facts to your chest and either refuse to share out of some sense of pride (I figured it out...you figure it out!) or because you don't think anyone will listen to you for the eight reasons above, you are denying yourself recognition by your peers, and you are making your whole community poorer, too.

So share, and let's all get smarter together!