Hi everyone. I'm starting a blog. I'd like to talk a bit about why I'm doing this.
Lately I've been frustrated with myself for being unable to formulate cogent critiques of The Way Things Are. I think this is largely because the channels of thought aren't really carved until you write things down or say them, and I don't do that enough. I think you have to engage with stuff, to manipulate it mentally and reformulate it, connect it to your existing context, in order to let it change you. Spongedom is overrated, sorry!! I'd like to be able to better articulate myself, I'd like to be able to advocate for the things I believe, and I'd like to develop my being towards some combination of truth, beauty, and usefulness. Moreover, I'd like to develop a practice of moving in this direction. I think it's good for me.
I hope that by writing, I manage to attract a few people who are interested in the same things as me, who can push my thinking in new directions, who are doing interesting things themselves. I would like to find and be found by those that will become important to me. I think one of the best ways to do this is putting stuff out there in the world; this is an outlet to do that.
I hope that I can save some people some time figuring stuff out. I think a lot about talking to my younger self; being trans does that to you. I hope that by adding my node more directly to this interconnected web, we can reach god a little faster.
I'd like to develop my thoughts a bit better, and have something to link to when I reference a concept. I've really liked having this for my page on Eyes. I think this is kind of like combing your hair. (Good to do when wet, but not constantly.)
I'd like to have something worthwhile to say. I'd like if it mattered, if people cared. I want to be important.
Journaling is okay for all this, but I think I need the editing and the audience so that my quality bar can be higher. It can't be tumblr because the reblogging culture would severely dilute the rest of this. Also I'm afraid I'll catch a ban, and then where will I be? It's good practice to have your own website.
I really like trans girl suicide museum by hannah baer. I admire greatly how she writes candidly, intelligently, and emotionally. I'd like to practice doing that myself. I didn't know you could write like that.
I don't really like who I am, and I'd like to change that. I think I can do that partially through writing; creating a scaffold self to grow into. My primary audience, right now, is probably myself.
I'm not writing to gain an audience or build a brand or any such like. At some point I will probably care a little about this; I'll start a separate tech blog to help me get a job, or I'll do a blog about scarification only, so as to build Industry Reputation. But right now I don't care about that.
I'm not really writing for the general public. They can read it but I am probably going to assume a lot of context and worldview that is not shared by the majority, and I won't always bother justifying this.
Hard rule: after this, no writing about blogging, no writing about making the blogging software, etc. I abhor navel-gazing. No fucking plays about plays or movies about hollywood. No selling courses on how to sell courses. I think there's something demonic here. (Ironic, given my penchant for the eye, the thing which sees itself seeing.)
I'm not going to write about tech unless it's ancillary to the content. I would feel fine writing about my message in a bottle project, but I don't really want to talk about how I wrote it. That feels like a tarpit.
I'm not making a static site generator. The RSS feed generation script I wrote is already thin ice. We are going with the simplest thing that works, which is HTML on my preexisting website. For techblog I'll probably use Pollen or something weird but for now I think that would detract from what I want to do, which is writing.
If there's anything you'd like here (comments section, something different with the RSS feed, stuff like that) please let me know. I can probably do it.
This blog and the rest of the website are on codeberg. But you can also just look at the source; there's really no build step.
There might be more I would like to say, but it is getting late in the day and I think this is good enough.