What am I trying to prove?

Recently, I started to worry about getting Alzheimer's. The cause for this was a talk about artificial intelligence. One story in this talk was about a group of nuns that were followed through their later years of life while regular taking mental capacity tests. In this story, a neural net was able to predict whom of these nuns developed Alzheimer's based purely on a text they wrote when they joined their order. Those that developed the disease were writing much shorter sentences, and had a more limited vocabulary. I saw myself in this group. I often have a hard time to express myself. Especially my first drafts contain a lot of bloat. Sometimes I fear that the final post isn't much better either.

Of course, this story doesn't say much. I haven't checked the study it's based on and don't know if it would be replicable. But even if it is, there's an explanation that works just as well as gloomy, genetic determinism. Your brain works like a muscle. Maybe those less articulate were not as interested in challenging themselves mentally. Maybe, if they had read more throughout their lives, they wouldn't have developed Alzheimer's. Some of these markers are definitely not static. I could improve my vocabulary by looking up the meaning of words I don't know instead of glossing over them. To reduce the bloat in my writing, or identify any other quirks I have, I could review my blog (or hire someone to do so), and come up with specific drills to work on them. Currently, I don't do any of this.

Even since before I started blogging daily I had an item in my task list to hire an editor. I know it would be helpful, and I keep putting it off. I think the main reason is that I'm not working towards anything with my blog. That means I don't have a reason why I should work to improve my writing, at least on an emotional level. But forcing myself to write one post per day about anything doesn't help to gain a better perspective. Quite the contrary. It only keeps me busy, robbing myself of the opportunity to take a break and reflect on what I'm trying to achieve.

So why do I keep writing? What am I trying to prove? That I'm able to work on a project that no longer has any personal use? What would I think two years from now if I would stop this project right now? I probably wouldn't think about it at all. The project did what I wanted it to do. It showed me that I can publish with a tight deadline. But the only thing it's doing now is holding me back. If one wants to go fast, one has to go slow first. If I want to try other things, I need more time to experiment. This isn't about giving in to perfectionism. It's about giving myself the space to fail. Right now, the only reason I keep writing is to keep the streak alive and reach an arbitrary number I set myself. If the culture I grew up in would use an octal number system, I would be done with this project by now. But if this is the only reason I write, maybe it's just time to stop.