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# Hello World
- URL: https://valimeren.com/hello-world/
- Published: 2026-08-22T16:34:00.000Z
- Updated: 2026-09-12T12:57:34.000Z
- Author: Ümit Akdeniz

I have wanted to write regularly for years.

And, for years, I have been remarkably good at not doing it.

I have created notebooks, installed note-taking apps, reorganized folders, designed systems, redesigned those systems, thought about starting a blog, imagined what the blog would look like, and occasionally even written something.

What I never managed to do was the simplest part:

**Keep writing.**

So, naturally, the first post on this blog has to be the most clichéd title possible.

Hello World.

![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/b2/46/b246d64e-efe9-4e29-b2f2-fc7c66bc2897/content/images/2026/09/Screenshot-at-Sep-09-17-54-33-1.png)

There have been many attempts before this one. Some survived for a few days, others for a few weeks. Eventually writing started to feel like another item on a list of things I was *supposed* to be doing.

And the more important I made it, the less I wanted to do it.

Recently, something changed.

Not because I discovered some revolutionary productivity system, and not because I suddenly became more disciplined.

Instead, I started making writing **more enjoyable**.

## A corner of the internet that is mine

Two personal websites have been particularly influential for me.

The first is **Fatih Arslan** ([arslan.io](https://arslan.io/?utm%5Fsource=chatgpt.com)).

The second is **M. Serdar Kuzuloğlu** ([mserdark.com](https://www.mserdark.com/hakkimdaki-hemen-her-sey/?utm%5Fsource=chatgpt.com)).

They are obviously very different people and their websites are very different as well. But both reminded me of something I had almost forgotten about the internet: a personal website can actually be *personal*.

It does not have to be optimized for an algorithm.

It does not have to become a business.

It does not have to fit into a timeline.

You can simply have a place where things accumulate.

Thoughts, photographs, discoveries, projects, mistakes, opinions, books, tools, experiments, moments from your life.

I particularly like the feeling of going through someone's archive and seeing years of a life represented there.

Not a carefully constructed biography written in retrospect, but fragments left behind while life was actually happening.

That idea is probably the biggest reason this website exists.

I want a trail.

Something that future me can return to and say, *so this is what I was thinking about in 2026.*

## The tools made a bigger difference than I expected

This website runs on [Ghost](https://ghost.org/?utm%5Fsource=chatgpt.com), using the [Kyoto theme by Themex Studio](https://themex.studio/kyoto/?utm%5Fsource=chatgpt.com).

That sounds like a boring technical detail.

For me, it isn't.

![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/b2/46/b246d64e-efe9-4e29-b2f2-fc7c66bc2897/content/images/2026/09/Screenshot-at-Sep-09-18-01-31.png)

![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/b2/46/b246d64e-efe9-4e29-b2f2-fc7c66bc2897/content/images/2026/09/Screenshot-at-Sep-09-18-02-37.png)

ewew

I underestimated how much the environment around writing affects whether I actually want to write.

Ghost feels like a place designed around publishing. Kyoto does something equally important: it makes me want to put things into the website because I enjoy seeing them there.

Typography, whitespace, images, the archive, the way articles look — none of these things produce words for me.

But they reduce friction.

And sometimes reducing friction is enough.

There is also something slightly ridiculous but very real about spending money on a beautiful theme and suddenly thinking:

*Well, now I actually have to write something.*

I am completely fine with that.

## Buying motivation

I have also started doing something similar with physical writing.

Over time I bought notebooks, fountain pens, ink, and other stationery that I genuinely enjoy using.

There is a common piece of advice that says you should not buy equipment hoping that it will magically give you motivation.

That advice is mostly correct.

Buying a guitar does not make you a guitarist. Buying running shoes does not make you a runner. Buying an expensive notebook certainly does not make you a writer.

But I think there is another side to it.

Sometimes investing in an activity changes your relationship with it.

You begin to care about the ritual.

You want an excuse to use the object.

And if that object happens to be a pen, the only reasonable excuse is to write.

(IMAGE: My Lamy Safari and Lamy AL-star together)

I currently use a **Lamy Safari** and a **Lamy AL-star**, and apparently I have reached the point where I can barely keep them supplied with ink.

Which is probably the nicest productivity problem I have ever had.

I spent years trying to force myself to write.

Now I am apparently writing enough to create a small ink logistics problem.

Progress.

![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/b2/46/b246d64e-efe9-4e29-b2f2-fc7c66bc2897/content/images/2026/09/20260909_175102-1-1.jpg)

![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/b2/46/b246d64e-efe9-4e29-b2f2-fc7c66bc2897/content/images/2026/09/20260909_174210-1.jpg)

## Pen, paper, and the pleasure of the object

There is something about the physical act of writing that I do not get from a keyboard.

I have always been attracted to the attention given to pens, paper, notebooks, and small everyday objects in Japanese stationery culture.

A notebook does not need fifty features.

A pen does not need Bluetooth.

Paper does not receive software updates.

The object has one job.

And when it is beautifully designed for that job, using it becomes satisfying in itself.

That is probably why I have become particularly fond of **Midori notebooks**.

![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/b2/46/b246d64e-efe9-4e29-b2f2-fc7c66bc2897/content/images/2026/09/20260909_174313-1.jpg)

![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/b2/46/b246d64e-efe9-4e29-b2f2-fc7c66bc2897/content/images/2026/09/20260909_175037-1.jpg)

There is an important lesson hidden in that simplicity.

For years I approached writing as something whose reward came *after* the writing.

Finish an article.

Complete a journal entry.

Publish something.

Achieve something.

Now I am trying to make the process itself the reward.

The notebook feels good.

The pen feels good.

The desk feels good.

Opening a blank page feels good.

So writing no longer begins with:

*I should write today.*

Sometimes it begins with:

*I want to use that pen.*

That is a surprisingly powerful difference.

## Hemingway, Çetin Altan, Ferhan Şensoy — and the physicality of writing

Writers such as **Ernest Hemingway**, **Çetin Altan**, and **Ferhan Şensoy** also shaped the way I think about this.

Not because I am trying to imitate how any particular one of them worked, but because they remind me that writing is not merely an intellectual activity.

It is physical.

At some point, you have to sit somewhere.

There has to be a page.

There has to be a sentence.

Then another sentence.

And then another.

![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/b2/46/b246d64e-efe9-4e29-b2f2-fc7c66bc2897/content/images/2026/09/ErnestHemingway-1-1.jpg)

![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/b2/46/b246d64e-efe9-4e29-b2f2-fc7c66bc2897/content/images/2026/09/Ferhan_--ensoy-1.jpg)

![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/b2/46/b246d64e-efe9-4e29-b2f2-fc7c66bc2897/content/images/2026/09/images-1-1.jpeg)

From left to right: Ernest Hemingway (1899–1961), Ferhan Şensoy (1951–2021), and Çetin Altan (1927–2015).

The romantic image of the writer and his desk can obviously become another form of procrastination. I am very capable of spending twenty minutes arranging a desk instead of spending twenty minutes writing.

But there is something useful in treating writing as a craft rather than waiting for some mysterious moment of inspiration.

The pen touches the paper.

The sentence begins.

That is enough.

## My manual system

So I now have a small analogue writing system.

It is not complicated, because complicated systems are exactly how I usually manage to destroy my own habits.

There are larger notebooks for longer thoughts, planning and things worth developing.

Then there are the smaller notebooks.

My pocket notebooks might actually be the most useful part.

![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/b2/46/b246d64e-efe9-4e29-b2f2-fc7c66bc2897/content/images/2026/09/20260909_174035-1.jpg)

They are for fragments.

An observation.

Something somebody says.

A book I want to find.

An idea for an article.

A question.

A sentence that appears in my head while I am somewhere completely unrelated to writing.

I do not expect these notes to be polished.

That is the point.

A notebook in my pocket gives ideas somewhere to land before they disappear.

Some of those ideas will eventually become posts here.

Most probably will not.

That is fine too.

Not everything needs to become content.

## And then there is the digital side

As much as I enjoy paper, pretending that I am going to organize my entire life through notebooks would be absurd.

My digital system currently revolves mostly around two applications: **UpNote** and **Obsidian**.

They have very different roles.

**UpNote is quick.**

I use it when I want as little resistance as possible between having a thought and saving it.

Open.

Write.

Done.

No ceremony.

![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/b2/46/b246d64e-efe9-4e29-b2f2-fc7c66bc2897/content/images/2026/09/Screenshot-at-Sep-09-17-56-40.png)

UpNote Screen - [https://getupnote.com](https://getupnote.com/?ref=valimeren.com)

Obsidian is almost the opposite.

**Obsidian is the center.**

It is where things become connected, organized and developed. Projects, plans, references, longer notes, ideas, knowledge — increasingly, it is becoming the place from which I manage much of my day.

![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/b2/46/b246d64e-efe9-4e29-b2f2-fc7c66bc2897/content/images/2026/09/Screenshot-at-Sep-09-17-55-13.png)

![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/b2/46/b246d64e-efe9-4e29-b2f2-fc7c66bc2897/content/images/2026/09/Screenshot-at-Sep-09-18-09-27.png)

![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/b2/46/b246d64e-efe9-4e29-b2f2-fc7c66bc2897/content/images/2026/09/Screenshot-at-Sep-09-17-55-36.png)

I call this one my second brain.

If UpNote is the digital equivalent of grabbing a piece of paper and quickly writing something down, Obsidian is closer to entering my study and sitting at the desk.

One captures.

The other develops.

And then Ghost publishes.

That separation makes sense to me.

**Notebook → UpNote → Obsidian → Ghost** is not a strict pipeline. Most things will never move through all four.

But they are four different places where thinking can happen.

## From obligation to anticipation

This is probably the most important change.

For a long time, writing belonged to the same category as exercise I did not want to do or homework I kept postponing.

Something beneficial.

Something important.

Something Future Me would supposedly be grateful for.

And therefore, inevitably:

something I should do tomorrow.

Now there are moments during the day when I actually look forward to sitting down, opening a notebook, uncapping a fountain pen, or opening the Ghost editor.

![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/b2/46/b246d64e-efe9-4e29-b2f2-fc7c66bc2897/content/images/2026/09/20260909_174244-1.jpg)

I am starting to understand that motivation does not always have to come before the activity.

Sometimes you can build an environment that produces motivation.

A notebook you love.

A pen you want to use.

A website you want to fill.

Software that makes capturing thoughts effortless.

A desk you enjoy sitting at.

Individually, these things look trivial.

Together, they change the emotional character of the activity.

Writing stops feeling like an obligation.

It becomes something you anticipate.

## So, what will I write here?

I have deliberately avoided creating too many rules.

That would be the fastest possible way for me to stop writing again.

This will probably contain physics, technology, books, software, projects, tools, photographs, personal experiments, things I learn, things I change my mind about, and occasionally things that are difficult to categorize at all.

Some posts may be long.

Others might only need a few paragraphs.

Some might have twenty photographs.

Some might simply document something I want to remember.

I want the archive to grow naturally rather than designing the perfect archive before there is anything inside it.

There is a temptation when starting something like this to announce a schedule.

*One article every week.*

No.

I know myself better than that.

For now, there is only one rule:

**Keep leaving traces.**

![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/b2/46/b246d64e-efe9-4e29-b2f2-fc7c66bc2897/content/images/2026/09/20260909_174457-1.jpg)

I have spent enough time preparing to write.

Now I would like to actually write.

And considering how quickly I am going through Lamy cartridges, apparently I already am.

Hello World.