On blogging

I kept a blog when I was younger. I approached it as a highly polished portfolio of my thoughts. Posts were infrequent and daunting to write. I wrote for others, not myself. Years later, I realized that nourishing this craft through regular practice was more important to me than publishing a 'finished' product every time.

Why write on a personal website? Why not use another service, like Substack?

Many people seem to document their projects/lives using YouTube, Instagram, Substack, etc. However, these companies own their platforms and thus exert influence on the means of creation. They essentially behave as content incubators. I currently have no plans to make writing a career, and I'm not writing for a broad audience. I want my creativity to flourish without the pressure to commercialize, and I want to keep it exclusive, like a walled garden. I believe I can achieve this by creating and hosting a static website on Github Pages. If I ever want to release my works to a broader audience, I can publish them on a platform.

Why write on digital?

The digital world is always at my fingertips. I can access my work from anywhere, and so can the people I share with.

Why writing and not filming?

Writing can be parsed/skimmed easily and doesn't require high activation energy: I simply fire up a Codespaces instance, create a file, and push it to the Github repo. I don't have to think about how I look or sound. Writing puts the ideas at center stage. I chose the mkdocs website as a template for my blog because it makes writing even easier. I need only write in markdown - the plugin automatically converts it to HTML/CSS. I can also go back in time and easily edit my posts. If I'm away from my computer and have recorded ideas in my notes app, I can easily copy and paste them into markdown on my Mac. For these reasons, I think writing digitally is the perfect medium for experimentation. In the future, I may explore voice dictation to reduce friction and save myself some time. I also enjoy hearing my own voice.

Who am I, the writer?

A learner and a sharer.

Who am I writing for?

Primarily future me. I would like to look back at all the progress I've made.

What kind of writing am I posting here?

As this site is always a work in progress (much like myself!), some pieces are in their nascent stages and others are closer to being fully developed. This is a place where I document my experiments. I will call it the Strava for Intellectual Pursuits. Similarly to how my athletic pursuits have shifted over the years, I can quickly try things and move on when it's time.