Over the years, I have written a number of posts wondering what I should be doing with the blog. They usually follow a pattern:
- I don't think it's enough
- I need to do more
- I need to do something meaningful
- something big!
The mindset creeps in that blogging should be about achieving something. What? Why?
I've been rethinking this recently in a new context.
Bix shared a post from Ethan Marcotte called Let a website be a worry stone. — it's from 2020, during covid times:
While things were changing, I kept working. After a few weeks tinkering with this redesign, I realized I wasn’t working on a website, not really: it was a worry stone.
This rings so true.
I'd not come across anyone referring to a website as a worry stone before (I keep seeing it now) but the idea has been with me for a while.
In 2021 I referenced Craig Mod's piece The healing power of code saying that I felt similar when working on the site:
I called it avoidance but I think escape is more accurate, and not just mindless escape – that sense of being able to create something, to be productive, even while the world around you is in a mess, is remarkably cathartic.
Bix goes beyond the processing of working on the site to say:
What strikes me here is not just that this very much sometimes can be what site tinkering is about, but also that worry stones make me think of stimming, and it’s extremely common for me after a site launch or redesign for me to just sort of sit and somewhat absently scroll up and down the page, over and over again.
This reminds me of describing my homepage layout as a fidget toy: "hovering over each part (tapping, on mobile) just to watch the little transitions. It's oddly satisfying and calming." Adding a short vibration when tapping on links (supported devices only, obviously) gives just a little bit of sensory feedback that draws me in further.
In his post I am a poem I am not software Robin Rendle addresses the question: "what should our personal websites do?" after quoting Katherine Yang on Mastodon addressing "website worry-stone people". He asks:
Should we prioritize getting a new gig or selling a service? Or can we be ourselves? Weird and fun and peculiar? Should we talk about topic X but avoid topic Y?
All this feeds the context around my own site: why should it need to achieve something and what should that something be?
I don't need the blog to sell or promote anything; it is, first and foremost, my own space — one I can do with what I wish. It is an outlet that allows the introvert in me to express myself in ways I would find so hard in person. It is a focus and a distraction, a playground and a classroom. It is a sounding board that lets me connect with people all over the world, many of whom are just like me: sheltering from the world but equally tired of hiding.
This site doesn't need to do anything more as it already achieves all that!
Yet I still find myself asking the question.
I realise that I never think the site is enough because it is an extension of myself and I never feel that I am enough.
Let's face it, that is stupid outlook!
None of us are ever the finished article as there is always more to learn and room to grow.
There is a close symbiosis at play, a connection between myself and the site that sinks far deeper than just author and words. I build and populate the site and it, in turn, feeds and nourishes me in ways I would not otherwise dream possible.
Ideas beget more ideas. I become my own inspiration following avenues of thought that would not exist if it were not for the site. Avenues like this one.
The blogger's mindset compels me to seek out the words of others, just as they might seek mine. Each new connection, no matter how deep or fleeting, provides new perspectives and gives life to new thoughts.
My home on the web is welcoming, familiar, nurturing. Building, redesigning, tearing it down (even if just in part) to start again or head in a different direction — my site is a reflection of the ongoing process of me becoming myself.
How can I expect it to be anything else?
