Once Again: Hello, World
World,
i have repeatedly said that i will blog consistently. i have repeatedly failed.
The one time i did get close - during the transition from '23 to '24 - i often published rubbish articles that neither i nor anybody else cared about.
The past few months have been turbulent, to say the least. i last published a post in September, after the in-retrospect-very-happy IndiaFOSS. A lot has happened since—i removed the paywall from Medium, for one. Not out of nobility—it's just that 4 USD / month didn't seem to have a good ROI.
A friend suggested Bearblog, and it looked sweet. Lightweight. But perhaps most importantly, it would allow me to shift away from "gaming" my blogging - focusing on actual content rather than likes and reach and (more recently) money.
My biggest benefits from blogging have been organizing my thoughts for my own future self and developing a presence—albeit a weak one—in communities i care about. These will continue with this blog.
Another thing i'm grateful for as a blogger is that i have a place to ramble or scream (mostly) without hurting anybody. There are some articles i wrote that are seemingly irrelevant, and indeed barely got any reception—on the 2024 election and Tlaib, on intolerance, a defense of academics and least impressively but also the most courageously, a rambler on Israel. Not all of them are political - there is this nice lil piece, or this academic summarization of love that my sister still teases me about. Don't make unconventionalism conventional, i urged.
Yes, these are not the pieces that people liked, but these are the ones i truly cherish. They came from my heart. i didn't care who saw them, or what they said (though i admit to being guilty of clap-mining). i love them. They were often not good (the post on Israel has to break every rule in the writing book)—but they were genuine, and they make me smile when i read them today. i am the primary audience of this blog, and that's one thing i'm going to try to change - never write a post i don't want to.
i wanted to go on, but i opened up an old post of mine and saw this:
In summary, I’m going to write… from my heart, more often, on a diverse range of topics that relate to my life, and shorter stories.
And i clearly haven't done anything like that, so it feels a little politician-ey to say the same stuff again.
i will then close with this: i'm trying to come up with "rituals" in life. i was a consistent mocker of rituals just two years ago. But with so much change around me, i've discovered that rituals are quite calming. New opinion: rituals good, mockers bad.
So one of these said rituals is to publish a post every Sunday. Perhaps i'll change this to every other Sunday, but the principle remains. At least in theory, i do expect some results.
That said, i have no fancy promises to offer this time. i don't know what this blog will bring. i don't know if it'll last, or if it'll grow, or anything. All i know is that i'm going to have fun.
So then, my world: hello.
Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.
The New Colossus