Coming Soon: Ramblings, Readings, and Rebounds

Why I decided to start writing RRR

Hi, there. First off, thank you for being here. Although, I’m pretty sure “you” is just an imaginary person at this point, I am thrilled that you’re taking precious time to read my writing. My name is Tiko Coassin, a 27-year old living just outside of New Haven, CT. I love to be in nature, play basketball and soccer, and learn. There’s nothing remarkable about me, and I wanted to mention that right from the beginning :).

I should also start by saying I have zero expectations of reaching a large audience with my writing, nor do I crave any measure of financial benefit from content creation. There are, however, personal benefits I know I will derive from a continued writing practice. For one, I’ll improve my long form thought expression capabilities; capabilities that haven’t been developed in a meaningful way since my college days. Additionally I might hope to see my life and the events surrounding me a bit differently, if I train myself to habitually think, “what would I say about this if I were to write about it?” To the contrary, there are less selfish reasons for printing my perspective that I would be lucky to realize. If even one person is moved in a positive way by my writing, then this endeavor would have already proved fruitful in my eyes.

Not only do I lack expectation around any “success metrics” for this project, I equally am missing a carefully thought out plan for how it will develop over time. I have a loosely held framework in my head for each edition, and I plan on distributing a new post via email one time per week.

Each post will consist of six sections, each being fairly brief:

• A section on activities that I’ve recently engaged in, and the lessons / takeaways I have

  • This is my way of forcing myself to notice and internalize life’s lessons more frequently. My hope is this will be a way to share those lessons in a thoughtful way.

• A section on the best reading I have done during the week, regardless of subject (of course, the readings will trend to be about topics I personally have interest in)

  • Likely, this will be a brief explanation on what I found so fascinating about each piece, with links to the material.

• The Junto section

  • I recently read Benjamin Franklin’s autobiography, which served as one source of powerful inspiration I got for writing more frequently. While living in Philadelphia (a place I was also lucky to call home for a decade), Ben Franklin started the Junto. Junto was a club aimed at the individual and collective improvement of its members, and ultimately societal affairs as a whole. At its meetings, the Junto would often discuss a series of 24 questions. In this section of my writing, I will answer my favorite three:

    • Have you lately heard of any citizen’s thriving well, and by what means?

    • Do you know of any fellow citizen, who has lately done a worthy action, deserving praise and imitation? or who has committed an error proper for us to be warned against and avoid?

    • Have you lately observed any defect in the laws of your country, of which it would be proper to move the legislature an amendment? Or do you know of any beneficial law that is wanting?

  • Here’s a link to all 24 of the Junto questions, from The Junto Institute.

• A section on positive news for society

  • This is a stolen idea from my father, who since I was a kid has told me about his collegiate idea of starting “The Good News Network” to combat our societal custom of amplifying negative stories via the news. Unfortunately for my father, he’s too late!

• A section about basketball, usually focused on the NBA

  • I’m not someone who likes to discuss sports all that often (though I sure as hell like to play them). Basketball is a part of me that I want to share.

• Randomly occurring thoughts / observations I have had whether recently, or well in the past

  • I am not someone with a conversational inner monologue. I’m really looking forward to putting words together to describe my thoughts on various subjects as they come to me. My belief here is that if I take the time to unpack my feeling on something, I can turn it into a fully articulate idea / view / curiosity, for myself at the least, if not the reader.

That’s it! I would be thrilled to have you be a part of this journey with me. I’m ready to get started.