STA's journal — Amsterdam
STA's journal — Amsterdam
A question I pondered over the last few years as the idea came to mind. I’ve always been fascinated by blogging, or imagining myself as one of those people on a plane or in cafes writing. I felt this way with many things, sometimes getting excited about a random splurge of ideas such as buying a fish, cycling across France, launching Staja, or taking up tennis or violin lessons. Sometimes these ideas take hold of me until I try them out, sometimes they don’t. While the saying is true, a jack of all trades is a master of none, I hope Staja can channel those random splurges into a consistent stream of writing from whereupon I can excuse my side adventures as quests to expand my writing career. I also know that I can make whatever I do exciting if I know I can write about it and share it with the world.
Though I’m not necessarily good at it, I like writing. In fact, I love it so much that I choose to abandon it on the daily. I’m afraid of the realisation that my writing is imperfect. When I launched an Instagram page to share photos of Amsterdam, I never minded posting a bad photo. I knew it was all part of the learning experience - I was indifferent to it. Writing, on the other hand, feels scary because I know I put effort into it. If any of it is ill-perceived, I would struggle to distance myself from it as I do with photography.
Yet ironically, the only way to get good at it is to do it. While I sometimes do enjoy writing a piece for myself, writing in public forces me to articulate my thoughts clearly and in an orderly fashion. Just like an artist’s painting is never truly finished, so is a piece of writing. Publishing may be the only way to accept imperfection and keep improving.
In essence, I hope Staja is a place where I can organise and share my writing and creative pursuits. I write here to myself as much as to anyone. It is also a reminder for myself to notice beauty in life and reflect on it.
My vision for what Staja is may change, and I don’t fully know what it will become. I think the only way to find out is by doing it and figuring it out along the way.
I hope you enjoy your time here.
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It was the name I gave my first handmade leather journal from Florence, a blend of my initials and journal: STA’s Journal - Staja. The name was also supposed to help me decode an encrypted language I wrote with back then. If I forgot the encryption, I could start off with Staja and go from there. And it has stuck with me since, usually addressing my journal entries as “Dear Staja…”
