The corner of the internet has been claimed. Now comes the part where I hold myself accountable to the creative practice I said I needed and make something in it. If I'm being honest, the affordance of the space scared me a little. What do I do with this now? But after many deep breaths and time spent in my journals, I've uncovered the following projects to start thinking further about.
1. This Website: adibjalal.com
The first project is this website you're on. I'm going to treat its creation as an ongoing creative practice rather than a finished product to launch and forget.
I could have used an easy platform like Substack to publish. Instead, I'm going down the more difficult route. It boils down to two things: using it as an opportunity to learn, and achieving maximum flexibility in what I can build. This will let the website evolve as I do; as I learn more, as my needs change, as I figure out what actually matters versus what I thought would.
It's going to be daunting. I already know this from just getting this current page up and running. But with the help of online resources and Claude Code, I hope to make this website both canvas and practice. I'll also be "making in public," documenting the messy process of figuring things out rather than just showcasing polished outcomes. And since there is never a "completed" state, there is no deadline. Wish me luck.
2. Walking, Noticing, Writing - Footnotes
This used to be a practice of mine. I stopped doing it. Now I'm returning to it deliberately.
The practice is simple: walk Singapore at the speed of thought, pay attention to what emerges, and write it down. Not as a tourist or commuter moving between destinations, but as someone genuinely present to the texture of the city. Parts of the city appearing and disappearing. The compressed histories. The ways people inhabit and build their life in this place.
Singapore is ideal for this. Small enough to cross on foot, dense enough to contain multitudes, changing fast enough that every walk documents something about to vanish. The heat will impose its own rhythm, forcing a particular kind of slowness. The city becomes the terrain I'm thinking through.
This connects to the website because it's fundamentally about the same thing: what it means to really see a place, and how to translate that seeing into language. Walking is thinking. Writing is my attempt to capture that thinking for a future me and others. You'll find it saved under the project titled Footnotes.
What's Next?
These are the two projects I'll put my attention on. They'll matter probably only to me and I won't worry much about external validation because I'm not singing for an audience. I'm singing quietly in my own shower. But if you appreciate it or have thoughts, do let me know.
I'll keep building, keep learning, keep writing. Some weeks I'll have more time than others. Some months might be quieter as work and life consume everything. That's okay. This space isn't going anywhere, and neither is the expectation that I produce consistently. The whole point was to escape that pressure.
I'll probably write about the building process occasionally: documenting the technical challenges, the creative breakthroughs, the inevitable frustrations. Not as tutorials or how-to guides, but as notes from someone learning in real-time, figuring it out as he goes. This is how things will take shape, for now.