/blog

I signed off Bluesky last night saying I was going to be taking a break then uninstalled the app from my phone.

For now.

I'll be back but I think I need one less distraction to get my head straight.

As is always the case with social platforms, no matter how carefully you curate your following list, politics and its ilk rear their often ugly heads. It's only natural as we contain multitudes. When I return, I will be adding more words to my mute list in an attempt to cut some of this out.

I don't begrudge anyone writing or linking to anything they are passionate about. It's just that I want to have more control over what I see and when. That doesn't mean I don't care, but that I haven't got the headspace to deal with it.

In the meantime, I'll still be here on the blog. I've been trying to get back into the habit of posting regularly. I have an unbroken run in the journal going back to early November, but want (or need) to be more consistent here.

It goes back to feeling that compulsion, or itch as Robert describes it.

Jack writes about blog management fatigue:

I have a love/hate relationship with blogging workflows. My mood changes too often and it ruins each carefully crafted setup. It’s a good thing there’s a love portion of the equation.

Also, from his post on Sunday:

I tend to write a few types of posts: daily journals, longer posts, short notes, and photo posts. No blogging tool I’ve used has done each of these well.

There is inevitably going to be an issue when using someone else's tool/platform/CMS — it's never going to be perfect for you.

Jack has been testing Kev Quirk's Pure Blog and, by his own admission, it was intended to scratch the itch of one person: it's creator. Kev knew what he wanted so built it.

My own CMS isn't perfect, far from it, but it works (mostly) in the way I want. Hyblog was designed as a simplified version of that without the database (more like Pure Blog). While a couple of people have tried it, it's not stuck for them.

There are always compromises to be made, trade-offs to factor into any decision, and we have to go with the 'best fit'. Unfortunately, that's not necessarily the same thing in all circumstances.

It's a running joke that Jack changes his blogging platform almost as often as he changes his underwear. ¹ He longs for "one true blog" that does everything he wants exactly how he wants it. Speaking from my own experience, that's not guaranteed even when you build your own.