What is Thoughtstarters?

A project, several shifts, and a return

The pandemic changed the way I think about thinking. I credit this to the personal essays I wrote and put out for public consumption between June and November 2020. For the first time in years, I wasn’t writing to get a good grade or for work, but to share what I really thought about the changing world. I never expected it would also change the perspective of strangers.

Moving back to my parents’ house full-time wasn’t easy, but I found comfort and purpose in @storiesfromhome2020, an Instagram account that focused on—as the title implied—reflections, musings, and thoughts I had about the concept of home while I was stuck in the four walls of the house I grew up in.

In a series of short essays, I wrote about personal anecdotes on quarantine boredom and eating fruits and concepts at the forefront of my thoughts, such as virtue signaling and mansplaining.

In “Looking into the (trick) mirror,” based off Jia Tolentino’s Trick Mirror: Reflections on Self-Delusion, I asked:

Is the height of morality reposting on your IG account the chain messages that profess your support for Black lives? Is it showing that you donated to organizations with drives for Covid relief? These communicate morality. But who can determine if people are living morally outside the confines of their social media accounts?

I shared this with my personal network, who shared it with theirs. Soon I was getting messages from friends saying so-and-so loved the piece and had followed my account. Half of the people following me were people I had never spoken to. My stories became food for thought for other people. I grew bolder.

The evolution of my pandemic projects (2020)

A couple of months after its launch, “Stories from Home” was rebranded into “Thoughtstarters,” a collection of short reflections that encouraged its readers to think. I leaned heavily into the feedback I got about my stories, that they had pushed people to rethink their own experiences. I had planned to write about home, music, birth—the big things. I had huge plans for this newfound platform.

But this second iteration was not as successful as the first, with not as many essays published under this umbrella. I can’t quite recall why. Was it work? Did I just run out of ideas? Or did I get scared, knowing other people were perceiving the way my brain works?

I never got back to it after that.

My Instagram account @thoughtstarters_, where I used to post my pieces, naturally transitioned into my public-facing, literary account. It’s now the place where I share my favorite poems and essays, thoughts about socio-political and literary issues, and latest reads. In the time between Thoughstarters’ first death and its upcoming revival, I also joined a book review club (Fully Booked’s First Look Club), which reignited my passion for reading and writing about what I read – basically what my first few short essays were about (remember Trick Mirror?)

This project never ended up becoming what I thought it would be. It has shifted, both because of public reception and the creator’s actions, been abandoned, and been resurrected. I know it’s unintentional, but it’s funny to realize that it’s been very much like its namesake. This is the natural pattern of our thoughts.

Five years since my pandemic project was created, I want to go back to the heart of Thoughtstarters.

I want to read books and write about how they make me feel. See how the sun touches the grains of sand on the beach and think about why it evokes different feelings from when the sun hits the window in my bedroom. New emotions in new places, or new ones in old haunts.

All thoughts welcome.

All readers are, too.

This is the first part of my introductory articles. Read more about why I write here: