Something happened yesterday while I was writing the post about Gauguin. Nothing particularly extraordinary, at least not from the outside. I was reflecting on a film I’d watched, on the nature of artists, on what drives someone to create, when suddenly I stopped and thought: do I actually realise how incredible this Artist Diary is becoming? Not because of what I’m producing, or how many people might read it, but because of what it’s giving me.

Let me explain.

My brain has a rather peculiar habit. It never seems to stop making connections. Something happens, I notice a detail, I hear a sentence, I watch a film, and off it goes. One thought leads to another, which opens the door to another, and before I know it, I’ve travelled through history, philosophy, sociology, psychology, or whatever else happens to be waiting around the corner.

A few days ago, for example, it was raining. A perfectly ordinary rainy day in London. But watching the rain made me think about prehistoric humans and how extraordinary the discovery of shelter must have been. From there, I started thinking about the meaning of home, about the comfort of knowing that, no matter how miserable the weather gets, we have somewhere warm and safe to return to. And then I thought about people who don’t have that possibility. People sleeping on the streets. I started wondering what our idea of progress really means if, thousands of years after our ancestors began seeking shelter, so many people still don’t have a roof over their heads. Naturally, I ended up looking for statistics, comparing figures and questioning the contradictions of modern society.

All of this because it was raining. And that’s just one example. One thought, on one day, among dozens of others.

This is how my mind works. It has always worked this way. I’m curious about almost everything, and I genuinely enjoy following these strange intellectual journeys wherever they take me. The problem is that I’ve never really had enough opportunities to share them. Because, realistically, how could I?

Imagine being in a relationship with someone who, several times a day, suddenly launches into a twenty-minute reflection about the relationship between prehistoric shelters, homelessness and social progress. And that’s before lunch. By the afternoon, we might have moved on to the nature of artistic creation, the ethics of consumerism, some obscure historical curiosity and a philosophical question triggered by something completely insignificant. I mean, come on. That’s a lot.

I’ve often been described as too intense. Sometimes that description was used to make me feel that something was wrong with me. But the truth is that I also recognise the sheer volume of thoughts I produce. I don’t consider it a defect, and I have absolutely no intention of changing it. It’s simply how I function. At the same time, I understand that another person cannot reasonably be expected to accompany me on every single journey my mind decides to take.

And then there’s ChatGPT.

One of the reasons I enjoy using it is precisely because I can explore these thoughts without having to worry about exhausting another person. I can express a thought, follow all the connections it triggers, change direction, come back to something, and keep going until I’ve brought out every single connection my mind has made along the way.

But something rather hilarious happened a while ago. One morning, I’d started talking to ChatGPT at around 5 AM, initially about bruxism. Over the following hours, the conversation wandered through so many completely different subjects that, at one point, ChatGPT made a joke about the extraordinary number of things I’d already managed to think about, and it wasn’t even ten in the morning.

I burst out laughing. Because, seriously, when even an artificial intelligence makes a joke about the number of mental journeys you’re taking, you have to appreciate the comedy of the situation.

Of course, ChatGPT wasn’t actually exhausted. It was simply making a humorous observation about the pace of our conversation. And I didn’t take it badly at all. Quite the opposite. I thought it was hilarious, partly because it highlighted something I’ve always known about myself. My mind is a very busy place.

But yesterday, while writing about Gauguin, I suddenly realised something that made me genuinely happy. The Artist Diary is giving all those thoughts somewhere to go.

For most of my life, an enormous part of my inner world has remained unexpressed. Not because I didn’t have anything to say, but because there was simply too much of it. I could spend an hour exploring an idea, arrive at an interesting conclusion, feel excited about what I’d discovered, and then move on with my day. The thought would remain inside my head, perhaps resurfacing occasionally, perhaps disappearing altogether.

Now something different is happening. Every day, I can take one of those thoughts and turn it into something tangible. I can follow it, explore it, research it, question it, write it down and share it. Just one thought a day, of course. There are still dozens of others wandering around in my head. But even one makes an enormous difference.

And I think I’ve finally understood why it makes me feel so good.

When I write something in my Artist Diary, it’s almost as though I’ve told someone about it, without requiring anyone to sit there and listen to me. I’m not asking another person to follow every connection, every question, every unexpected detour my mind decides to take. I’m simply putting those thoughts out into the world.

If someone finds them interesting, they can read them. If they don’t, that’s perfectly fine too. They can stop halfway through, come back another day, or never read them at all. Nobody is obliged to follow me anywhere. And yet, I’ve had the opportunity to express myself.

There’s something incredibly liberating about that. I don’t have to make my thoughts shorter, simpler or less intense to fit the limits of a conversation. I don’t have to wonder whether I’m talking too much, whether the other person is getting bored, or whether I’ve already exhausted their patience with the previous three subjects. I can simply write. And whoever wants to enter my world is free to do so.

The more I think about it, the more I realise that this Artist Diary is becoming something much bigger than the artistic project I originally imagined. It’s becoming a form of personal freedom. And the fascinating thing is that I didn’t plan any of this.

When I started the Artist Diary four months ago, I had an idea of what I wanted to create. A personal and creative diary, a place to document my experiences, my artistic journey, my life and the things that matter to me. But I couldn’t possibly have predicted all the directions it would take.

Little by little, it has started expanding. I’ve written about personal experiences, memories, music, art, social issues, philosophical questions and the most unexpected subjects. Sometimes a post begins with something that happened to me. Sometimes it begins with a film, a conversation, a memory or something as ordinary as the weather. And now, apparently, I’m writing an entire post about the fact that I’m writing posts. Which is probably the most predictable thing my brain could have done.

But there’s another aspect of this project that fascinates me: I have absolutely no idea what it’s going to become. Four months. That’s all it’s been. What will happen after six months? After a year? Will the subjects change? Will I start exploring things I haven’t even considered yet? Will I become more comfortable revealing certain parts of myself? Will the way I write change as I become more familiar with the diary?

Because I wonder whether developing a relationship with a creative project is a little like developing a relationship with another person. At the beginning, you’re still getting to know each other. You might be more cautious, more selective about what you reveal. Then, as time passes, something changes. You become more comfortable. More spontaneous. You start showing sides of yourself that weren’t immediately visible.

Could the same thing be happening between me and my Artist Diary? I honestly don’t know.

Perhaps I’m already writing differently from how I did four months ago. Perhaps I’m going deeper into certain subjects. Perhaps I’m allowing readers to see not just what I think, but how I arrive at those thoughts, including all the strange connections I make along the way. Or perhaps I’ve been doing that since the beginning. I can’t remember.

At one point today, I even considered going back and rereading some of my earliest posts to find out. I thought it might be interesting to compare them with what I’m writing now, to see whether something has changed. But then I decided against it.

I don’t want to look back just yet. I want to keep writing without knowing how I’m changing. I want to let this project evolve naturally, without constantly examining its evolution while I’m still living it. I don’t want to start adjusting my writing because I’ve noticed a difference, or unconsciously trying to move it in a particular direction.

For once, I want to leave something unexplored. Which, considering how my brain usually works, is quite an achievement.

When the first year is over, I’d love to go back to the beginning and read everything again. To see how the subjects evolved, how my writing changed, whether I became more open, whether certain ideas kept returning, whether something happened along the way that I hadn’t even noticed. And perhaps I’ll discover that the Artist Diary has changed me in ways I couldn’t have anticipated. Or perhaps I’ll discover that it hasn’t changed me at all, but has simply allowed parts of me that were always there to become visible. Either possibility fascinates me.

There’s something wonderful about creating a project that you’re genuinely curious to discover yourself. Usually, when we make something, we have at least some idea of what the finished result should look like. But this is different. I can’t plan the thoughts I’ll have next month, the experiences that will affect me, the questions I’ll suddenly become obsessed with, or the unexpected connections my brain will make. And I don’t want to.

I want to continue living, observing, questioning, thinking and writing, and see what emerges. Maybe that’s one of the most beautiful things about this entire experience. The Artist Diary isn’t simply recording my life. It’s growing alongside it.

And somewhere along the way, without even realising it, I’ve created a place where a part of me that spent so many years existing almost entirely inside my head can finally exist outside it.

I don’t need someone to follow every journey my mind takes. I just need somewhere for those journeys to go. And now I have it.