why the big paws

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I haven't been putting stuff here on this website, but I should change that.

One of the things that has always bothered me about blogging is that keeping a diary is fundamentally a private activity for me. I remember twenty years ago, when LiveJournal was a new thing whose name I actually hadn't ever heard, a friend telling me that she was going to read people's diaries on the internet. I was horrified. Why would anyone do such a thing?

I kind of get it. But in terms of writing things myself, there's still a huge barrier for me to actually put something online. Part of the issue is that I frequently don't know what I want to say until I have written it: writing is fundamentally a creative process for me.

Which, as I think I've written about elsewhere on this blog, may or may not be a serious concern for me. The most likely number of people who will ever read anything on this website is fewer than twenty.1 I think that I'm overestimating how many people give a hoot about my scribblings.

There is a little piece of me that worries I will write something terrible or offensive or whatever on here, and if I ever find success or notoriety I will get the milkshake duck treatment. But that anxiety is probably rooted in some personal stuff that I don't intend to discuss here. See? Good judgment.

The point of having this space is for me to (a) keep track of things that I find interesting; (b) be able to point people at stuff without having to put it online again; and (c) perhaps be a little bit discoverable. Honestly, the most effective way to use it is to write as much as possible. If I feel silly because I'm writing about silly things, then I can just write about less-silly things later.

Another reason that I have been a little hesitant about writing is that I'm job-hunting, and I assume that employers are likely to at least do a Google search. But I don't think any such employer is going to do a deep dive. Honestly, a set of interesting little things is going to make me more interesting to any such searchers than a big waffly self-examination like this one.

Let's get the thing done and move on with my life.

  1. When I was finishing my dissertation and worrying about my writing quality, my advisor told me not to worry so much. "It's not your Nobel Prize," he said. "How many people do you think will ever read it?" "Maybe twenty, I suppose," I said. He responded, "That many? Who are they?" ↩