One of the reasons I started this new site + blog was that I love writing. I love sharing ideas. I find it therapeutic to write down my thoughts as I untangle and make sense of them. As a way of making sense of what’s going on around and inside of myself.
As a Covey 7 Habits gal since my late teens (thanks to Ashley for the introduction!) I have a mission statement. Putting first things first. The first recorded version I have of this (in Markdown, no less) is from around 2012. But I’ve had one for at least a decade before that.
As a result of some soul-searching and re-thinking of things over the past few years, I’ve been significantly revisiting/revitalising that statement. The core is still there, but the way I’m expressing it is changing.
A section of my statement covers off the different roles I identify myself as playing in the world, one of which is that of “Community Member”, which includes the point: “Share thoughts and learnings about the world with others (e.g. through blogs)”
I recently realised that one of my joys was that of writing. Just jotting down my thoughts in my own lil’ corner of the internet, without caring about who might read it, who my “target audience” is, trying to get followers or “build momentum.” No goal, other than to express my thinking, help me make sense of the world, and (hopefully) leave a positive, constructive and helpful trail for others in the future.
I’ve been blogging since the year 2000, when I first built an ASP-based blogging tool for myself. (I feel this new site, a custom CMS of sorts built on Astro, is a bit of a “full circle” moment, in that regard.) This was around the time of inception for sites/tools like Blogger, Movable Type, Radio Userland, and their kin. I dabbled with some of these tools, before settling on self-hosted Wordpress for many years, in a blog entitled “The Synapse Chronicles” (which is no longer on the interwebz, except via the Wayback Machine).
I really bought into the idea of the internet as a way of voices being heard outside of the mainstream media, free from censorship. The sorts of ideas outlined in the Cluetrain Manifesto. This ideal, history has shown (despite the warnings warding us away from the dangers), has gone south, of course. “Social media” became an algorythm-fueled corporate swamp, that is fueling hate and division and reinforcing echo chambers, facilitating political manipulation and gross misinformation campaigns.
But I still hold out the hope of that era. I loved that movement, the sentiment behind it. I held, and still hold, that idea of what the internet can be—the positive role it is capable of playing—in high regard.
And, frankly, I missed the opportunity to just say what I felt, rather than having all these conditions attached. About everything driving towards “gaining traction.” About my writing and contributions having to be polished and carefully edited.
So, when I launched this site just a few weeks ago, there was an underlying hope (partially express on the About page). That by having a “sovereign” space, that I controlled, built on a “plain text” basis that was portable, I would write more. That I would re-find that passion and joy of writing and sharing the “tidbits” as I go. Rather than setting aside 4+ hours to write a carefully crafted piece with a specific goal/project/audience in mind, I would just throw out an idea, a learning, into the ether.
Some of pieces are still more carefully crafted. But I’m pleased to see—for myself—that a mental block has clearly been broken down. As evidenced by my posting frequency over over the past few weeks, my “output” has been solid and unencumbered. It hasn’t felt like a chore. It hasn’t felt like a “big deal” to write a post. I haven’t felt that I had to “save my time” for writing a big, clearly articulated, post for one of my “curated” spaces.
I’m pleasantly surprised to see the subject matter veering wildly from music, to tech talk about exploring new tools and LLMs and solving problems for my partner’s business, to more reflective pieces like this one. That I’m feeling empowered to share ideas that are not yet fully formed. And not feeling like I have to have to manufacture an eye-catching graphic, or write an essay, for every post.
So, upon reflection, I feel like it’s working. The effort put into creating the simple framework for posting is having the desired effect. And, hopefully, that will continue into the future.
For anyone that is finding me in this lil’ corner, thank you for joining me. I deeply appreciate it.