Welcome!

Welcome to my website. Over the years, many different sites created by me have lived at this domain. This is the new one, and who knows how long it will be here. It is different from the previous ones, which mostly served as a way to prove to potential employers that I could indeed write code. Now that I have, and have a job :-), this is more to serve as my personal home on the web; although I imagine at some point my resume and some projects I have created will end up here.

In general, I don’t consider this a blog, though I suppose as far as Merriam-Webster is concerned,1 it is. Blogs seem to be more cohesive and serious than I expect this to be. I’ve called these entries “thoughts” instead of “blog posts” because one of my goals with this is to exercise my brain in whatever way is interesting in that moment, and document it here as a record to myself. If you happen to find that helpful, interesting, or compelling in any other way, wonderful!

Why?

I have been thinking about the sheer volume2 of the internet recently, and the nature of content3 that presents itself to me instead of being sought after. It seems like every website is screaming to try and win my attention, and I’m tired of playing that game. In an effort to combat that I am going to try writing longer form, more meaningul things that are of interest to me instead of shouting into the Algorithm and hoping that people take notice.

There’s loads of things wrong with the internet4 today: systems designed to be addictive, a million ways to satisfy our desire for instant gratification, search that doesn’t work.5 All of which, drive me to be a less fulfilled and peaceful person.

This webpage is one of many alternatives I am trying to and/or have introduced into my life. In tandem with posting this first thought, I am listing these alternatives and their reasonings here.

It’s important that this website, and all those other alternatives, are not in some hustle-based effort to grind into some uber-successful, productivity-pilled, super human. In fact, my hope is the opposite. I hope, and have seen over the past few months, that these things help me to live a quieter, more content, and simpler life. Many, if not all, of these things will demand cost of some sort; be it monetary, convenience, social, etc.

A preview of what is to come

Some things I want to eventually write about and don’t want to forget:

  1. https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/blog ↩︎

  2. Think speaker volume, not volume of a liquid. ↩︎

  3. Ugh, I hate that word. Here I am referring to things like, but not limited to, YouTube, Instagram, Reddit, headline-driven articles. Basically anything consumed on the internet. ↩︎

  4. and probably society as well, likely due in part to the condition of the internet ↩︎

  5. Looking at you, YouTube. I may write about this later, as well as some other observations from the internet. Though I feel like this is pretty well covered elsewhere, so unless I decide I have something to add I may not. ↩︎

  6. https://getbrewsy.com/blogs/community/what-is-acerglyn ↩︎

  7. About six months ago this actually made me try making this site the last time. I didn’t end up following through, but it is what got me thinking about writing. ↩︎