A Hiatus Comes to an End
Today is the first of June, a month with 30 days. Per neuroscience (as I learned from an Instagram reel the other day), this is the precise number of days it takes to form a habit. 30 days exactly.
Now, I haven't written anything on this blog since February. That's unsurprising. February is not a month conducive to habit formation, seeing as, even in its best years, it falls short of the ideal 30-day duration.
The month is a good, elastic unit of time, with its inbuilt variations of length. I used to write for my undergrad university's monthly magazine, where I learned just how elastic a month can be - the January edition once came out in May.
An edition of the magazine would, at irregular intervals, find its way into every hostel room, whose tenant would largely ignores its glossy sheets filled with print.
In print! My words used to be out in the world, in print. Were they all of the highest quality? Absolutely not. Yet I put those words out there, elastic month after elastic month, on paper with indelible, though slightly smudge-able ink. Words that were largely unedited (if I do say so myself), but now uneditable. And I'd always been happy to see my articles in those pages.
Contrast that with this blog, my outlet now, which is as editable as it gets - Bear Blog allows me to even change the publication date of a post. There's nothing to really worry about. This is a lovely platform to work on rebuilding my confidence to write things and put them out there.
It's actually quite easy - just type some stuff up and hit Publish.
Which is what I've decided to do 30 times this month.
And then, magically neuroscientifically, it will become a habit.