Why I Write About What I Thought Today Instead of Technology I Have Never Used

Recently, I have been writing technical articles a little less often.

The reason is simple.

I am running out of things to write about.

When you work as an engineer, you occasionally encounter a strange problem or discover a feature you never knew existed. Those experiences can become articles.

But an engineer’s daily life does not produce a major technical discovery every day.

Claude yesterday, Claude today, and Claude again tomorrow.

A fresh technical topic does not appear on my desk every morning.

Even so, I want to keep publishing regularly.

So lately, I have stopped limiting myself to technology. I also write about things I notice in daily life and thoughts prompted by the news.

At first, this was simply a way to deal with a shortage of topics.

But while searching for ideas for my technical blog, I began to think about what it means to write a technical article in the first place.

How Can Someone Say So Much About Technology They Have Never Used?

I sometimes read technical articles or watch YouTube videos while looking for ideas.

Quite often, I encounter something that makes me think:

“This person has probably never used this technology.”

The writer has studied the official documentation and overseas articles, then organized the information neatly. The explanation itself is not wrong.

Yet it feels strangely flat.

“The advantages of this technology are A, B, and C.”

“Compared with the conventional approach, it has the following characteristics.”

“This technology is likely to attract attention in the future.”

Everything is tidy, but the writing lacks the distinctive traces left by someone who has actually used the technology.

Real experience brings unnecessary details with it.

“I lost half a day at this point.”

“The documentation says this, but in practice you also need to change another setting.”

“I introduced it because it looked useful, but honestly, we did not need it.”

That is what I want to read in a technical article.

If I only need the specification, I can read the official documentation.

Today, I can also ask an AI.

Human writing has value because the person who wrote it is present in the text.

Writing Only About What You Know Eventually Becomes Too Specialized

Does that mean I should endlessly explore only the technologies I have personally used?

That does not feel right either.

Someone who has worked with Java for many years could write article after article about garbage collection.

There is no shortage of possible material: heap regions, generational garbage collection, pause times, differences between algorithms, and tuning parameters.

Eventually, the result would be an article read only by its author and a handful of people who took a wrong turn in search results.

It would be technically correct.

It would demonstrate expertise.

But I do not write a blog because I want to become the world’s leading authority on garbage collection.

For work, I investigate details as deeply as necessary.

That does not mean I want to spend every weekend writing about them.

This seems to leave two choices.

I can research the latest technology I have never touched and write an explanation that sounds convincing.

Or I can keep digging into technology I already know until nobody can follow me.

Neither option appeals to me very much.

So I Decided to Write About What I Thought Today

I removed the restriction that my blog had to be about technology.

If I use an interesting technology at work, I write about it.

If I get stuck on something, I write about the mistake.

If I genuinely try a new technology, I write what I thought of it.

If none of those things happen, I write about something I thought that day.

It can be politics, economics, a film, AI, or something I noticed in my neighborhood.

At least I can write about those things in my own words. That feels more honest than collecting information online about technology I have never used and explaining it as though I were an expert.

AI has also made this decision feel more rational than it once would have.

AI is already very good at studying official documentation about an unfamiliar technology, organizing the information, and producing an article with a title such as:

“What Is X? A Complete Guide to Its Advantages and Disadvantages!”

The value of spending several hours researching and producing a polished summary has clearly declined.

I would simply be rearranging information that anyone could obtain by asking an AI.

There is little point in continuing to do that.

The following kinds of stories are different:

“I saw something in the news today, and one detail bothered me.”

“Something about the way we worked today felt wrong.”

“I was using AI when this strange thing happened.”

Those stories contain what I saw, what caught my attention, and how I thought about it.

Why Do I Write a Blog in the First Place?

After thinking through all of this, I finally returned to the most fundamental question.

Why do I write a blog?

I am not trying to create a technical encyclopedia.

I am not competing to possess the greatest amount of technical knowledge.

The main reason I write a blog is to let people know who I am.

Of course, I also hope the blog leads to work, and I will not deny that a desire for recognition is part of it.

In any case, I am an engineer, so technology is naturally part of who I am.

Which technologies have I used? Where did I get stuck? When a problem occurred, how did I think about it and solve it?

But technology is not all of me.

What catches my attention when I watch the news?

What feels wrong to me at work?

How do I react when I try a new AI?

What do I notice while walking through the city?

Those things also reveal a great deal about how a person thinks.

If someone only wants my technical history, they can read my resume.

Information such as “I know AWS,” “I use Python,” and “I have system design experience” is already available on my LinkedIn profile.

A blog can communicate what lies beyond those facts.

How does this person think when a problem occurs?

Do they welcome every new thing without question, or do they pause and examine it?

When something feels wrong, do they ignore it, or do they ask why?

Writing about what I thought today therefore serves the purpose of my blog better than researching technology I have never used and pretending to know it well.

Instead of rewriting technical knowledge that AI can summarize in seconds, I write about what I saw today and what it made me think.

It is more enjoyable to write that way too.

That is why more of my recent articles have little to do with technology.

If Claude gives me trouble today, I write about Claude.

If I see the price of rice at the supermarket and it makes me think, I write about that.

If I notice something strange while watching a film, I write about that too.

The subjects may seem unrelated.

But they all share the same theme: what I saw and how I thought about it.

Once I understood that, I stopped worrying about running out of technical topics.

I will probably be truly out of ideas for my blog only when I can look at the world and no longer think anything about it.