What Is This Blog?

This is my blog where I want to talk about things that interest me. That includes, but is not limited to: tech, pen&paper, movies, video games, psychology, productivity,...

I'm no expert on any of these topics. And the goal is not to educate you, the reader. The goal is for me to reflect more deeply on the information and media I consume and for me to learn from writing this blog.

I hope that you do not just remain a reader, but become a writer yourself. To engage with the content you consume, the sources I cite or – and that would be the greatest honour – to engage with this blog. Reach me on Mastodon at @Optional@todon.nl

Why Is This Blog?

If you are not convinced, let me go into more detail about how this blog came about. It's four sub-points that I will merge into one conclusion at the end.

Social Media – The Ennui Engine

Recently, I read this article that described social media as an “Ennui Engine”, a slot machine where you gamble your time for the reward of worthwhile content. But like all slot machines, the house always wins and you are left worse off.

While the article is far from perfect it got me thinking about the social media I consume: While I was never active on Zucc's site or that Birdsite, I was on Reddit and consumed low-effort content (=shitposts). Taking some time off that has made me look for different content to consume: articles and blogs, video essays and higher(-ish)-effort podcasts. This instantly felt way more rewarding and even reading longer articles has gotten easier.

Indieweb and the Fediverse

I (re-)discovered two alternatives to traditional social media: The “Indieweb” is a movement that aims to build a “people-focused alternative to the 'corporate web'”. While I haven't dived deep yet, the main idea that inspired me was to take control of your own content by hosting it yourself instead of posting it on some companies platform. The Fediverse is a compromise: While your account (and content) is on a “foreign” website, it's an “instance” that co-exists with potentially hundreds more. You are free to interact with users on all instances, move to a different instance or even host your own instance.

Exchange of Ideas

While leaving Reddit was pretty good for my feeling of doing something worthwhile, I still have a need to share my interests and thoughts. That was pretty easy with memes: Put it in some chat group, wait a few minutes and someone is sure to reply with a cry-laughing emoji. But sharing a link to an interesting article in a chat group just doesn't work. People are not in the head space to read a 15-30 minute text when they open up their messenger of choice. And topics bounce too frequently to get a meaningful discussion going.

Salons

A format that could work better than a group chat is that of a “Salon”. In the 17th and 18th century these were gatherings in tea- or coffee-houses where people would converse to amuse themselves and increase their knowledge. There would be readings, lectures and discussions to engage on an intellectual level with art, culture and/or politics.

Conclusion

Some sort of Salon could be a solution for me to exchange and engage more deeply with ideas. Since I want to move away from consuming and sharing low-effort content I need a way to consume and share higher(-ish)-effort content. A blog seems like the right format. Make it federated and self-hosted and here we are!

The Way Forward

So after toying with this idea for a while the site's finally here. I don't yet know how exactly I'll use it, how I'll format my posts or when and how often I'll post.

Some more open questions remain:

I guess we'll see...

___ Reach out via Mastodon @Optional@dice.camp or shoot me an email