Rethinking blogging: Some reflections

As I hinted in a previous post, I’ve been feeling more compelled to write recently. And blogging seems like the most suitable venue for it! I’ve recently been inspired by Lifehacker posts like this and this, and also by a fascinating article in Scientific American that spoke deeply to this brain-tumour patient. But in a larger sense, as I explained earlier, I’ve been inspired by the growing feeling that I need to create something, and find sources of self-development, motivation, and satisfaction outside of my coursework and co-op job duties. There’s also the fact that I’m currently on crutches and unable to explore Toronto as thoroughly as I had wanted to this summer...but that’s a story for another day!

I’ve been hesitant to use my blog for a while, and I think there’s a few things at play here. First is that back in 2007, when I created this blog, I think I saw it as a fairly simple way of publishing interesting links, with the hope that maybe further discussion would ensue. (Nowadays, of course, I tend to do this on Facebook – but back in 2007, I think links were relegated to a different part of your profile rather than showing up with your statuses and everything else.) Starting in 2009 or so, however, I started to post some more “long-form” writing. University makes you think through everything in a bit more depth, I guess, so this is the path I’d like to continue on, even if the long-form writing looks inconsistent with my earlier blog posts. But the ironic thing here is that university also tends to sap any excess intellectual energy out of me, so it’s made this sort of long-form writing and the ensuing discussion more taxing for me (my deepest apologies, Luke).

The other issue is that I’m toying with the idea of creating a personal website again, but using it more for professional purposes, with these lengthier blog posts and a digital portfolio. So in the meantime, I’ve been hesitant to put more effort into this here Blogger blog. (Really personal blog posts, however, would stay here.) I recently used WordPress to build a new website for my church, and fell in love with it, so I’d want to use WordPress instead of Blogger for the new site. I’d blog about environmental and social-justice issues, like I’ve tended to since 2009, but I’d also like to get into topics of Geomatics and geography, human–computer interaction, and my various discoveries during daily life as a computer geek. In another previous post, I quoted from science-fiction author Bruce Sterling’s column about simplifying your life by getting miscellany out of your time-space. I re-read this piece every now and then, and there’s several things in it that I rather disagree with, but something that always jumps out at me is this point: (emphasis his)

Experiments need to be slotted into some larger context of research, and their results need to be communicated to other practitioners. That's what makes them true "experiments" instead of private fetishes.

If you're buying weird tech gizmos, you need to know what you are trying to prove by that. You also need to tell other people useful things about it. If you are truly experimenting, then you are doing something praiseworthy. You may be wasting some space and time, but you'll be saving space and time for others less adventurous. Good.

If you're becoming a techie magpie packrat who never leaves your couch – that's not good. Forget the shiny gadget. You need to look in the shiny mirror.

The thing about buying weird tech gizmos isn’t particularly relevant to me, as I’m notoriously frugal, and I also spend most of my digital time on my laptop. But it occurs to me that even my laptop exploits can sometimes be considered mere hedonism if there isn’t some intention of sharing my discoveries. That is to say, the various apps I test out for my own purposes and the solutions to random problems I have with Windows might be worth talking about, especially if they can make someone else’s life easier. I don’t intend to become Paul Thurrott or anything, but I think it would be interesting to share random tips I might come across.

So that’s the idea at the moment. Since I’m just not sure I can wait any longer, I’ve been working on a few other blog posts which I'll hopefully share within the next week or so: one on golf, one on the relationship between karma and crutches, and one on rethinking my use of Facebook. I can also think of a couple tech-related blog posts I could write fairly efficiently: one on a little-known-but-pesky Windows Vista bug I investigated a few years ago, and one on my varied opinions of Windows 8 and 8.1. Looking forward to seeing where this goes!