I had a bit of an epiphany this week. I have been working on developing an approach for more consistent writing. As a part of that process, I’ve been reviewing my sites. As a result, I ended up pulling a couple of posts from Text and Hubris. The posts I pulled were just critiques of web sites or technologies. These posts didn’t really add anything. They were more my piling on. I pulled them because I don’t want to do that. I have talked about this before, but it is so easy to slip into a bad habit of critique and complaint in online spaces. That critique isn’t needed here. It isn’t what I want to talk about.
I feel a bit like Dante (the poet, not the Devil Hunter). Somewhere along the way, I got lost in a dark wood. The passion I had for things got caught up in a variety of echo chambers: a purgatory of sorts to keep the metaphor going. A parade of the damned filled with online posts and voices screaming at me to like this and not that. It got to me. I stopped writing for the most part. It also sapped a lot of the joy I had for the things I love. That I allowed that to happen, is so absolutely stupid.
Maybe, and stay with me here, it is okay to just like things without seeking approval from the crowd. I think that is what galls me. I am not interested in approval. This was never about likes. It was about connecting and sharing the things I’m fascinated by. It’s okay if those things don’t appeal to you. You can think I’m weird or wrong. You wouldn’t be the first, and you certainly won’t the last.
Really, I don’t care if you agree with me, or like me, or not. You don’t have to like what I like or care about what I care about. This a big Internet, you can find your thing out there. What I am looking for are those who do like or care about the things I care about. I think, I hope, that there are a few of you out there who, like me, still see technology as a tool of independence and resistance (and are willing to work to preserve that), have a love and appreciation for high and low literature, media, and games (maybe even a little fan service now and then
), and love to share and tell stories. That is what I want this to be about. I lost focus on that in all the din.
It gets exhausting try to stay on the edge of the zeitgeist. I think that is where I lost track. It is a losing proposition. The better approach is just to write about the things I am excited about. Leave the moralizing and critiquing to the denizens of social media. That doesn’t mean I am never going to critique something, but when I do it needs to be within a context that I actually want to talk about. I will continue to talk about the issues I have with generative AI and the companies selling it because art and media matter to me.
My hope is that this focus gets me back to the page. At the very least, it means I will be having a lot more fun while I am there. It also means I will be talking about some really different topics. I may prune more of this site to better suit my approach. I have some older content that feels off-topic and less than valuable. This is my site, it evolves as I do. It has been silent for a long time. In a way, so have I.
I want that to change that. If I am going to, I have to find that passion, again.