"What if I pressed reset on all that I have published till date? Get rid of all of it. Archive it, maybe. And start afresh. What if I do it every year? Or every month?"
The idea of an ephemeral blog has long intrigued me but, in my own musings, I opted for a "Thought for the day" page – now defunct. 1
While it would be a fascinating prospect, the nature of my blog is the ongoing conversation with myself – past, present and future me all sitting down at a table and having a chat. (Although future me, for obvious reasons, can't give any spoilers.)
I enjoy looking back over what I have previously written, noting in particular where my thoughts and ideas have changed or stayed consistent. That wouldn't be possible with a truly ephemeral thing. Maybe the workaround would be to have old posts as only visible to oneself.
This ties is with this post from Tracy about publishing potentially compromising information on the web.
The question "what is compromising and especially from whose perspective" is a tricky one. It is so easy to cause unintended offence, especially when some are just looking for anything they can use as ammunition, but the point is wider than this.
It is very much my policy to be open and honest. Writing a post is usually what helps me get my thoughts in order but do I, should I worry about that candour being used against me? Could an employer use posts on mental health as an excuse not to interview (not that they'd ever let on or face accusations of discrimination) or tales of things that happened over 30 years ago?
How far would an ephemeral blog go to alleviate these concerns?
Sometimes things have to be said no matter the consequences but I generally steer clear of politics and religion; not because of not wanting to upset others or through fear of becoming the target of those who might not agree with me. I simply feel that there is enough potentially divisive stuff out there and choose not to pour more fuel on the fire.
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the code is still there, just not used or linked to at present ↩
