I miss the inter-blog chatter of the 2000s, but in truth, connectivity was only ever part of the appeal. Iād do this even if no one read it. Blogging, for me, is the perfect format. No restrictions when it comes to length or brevity: a post can be a considered and meticulously composed 3,000-word essay, or a spurted splat of speculation or whimsy. No rules about structure or consistency of tone. A blogpost can be half-baked and barely proved: I feel _zero _responsibility to ādo my researchā before pontificating. Purely for my own pleasure, I do often go deep. But itās nearer the truth to say that some posts are outcomes of rambles across the archives of the internet, byproducts of the odd information trawled up and the lateral connections created.
āRambleā is the right word. When blogging, I can meander, take short cuts and trespass in fields where I donāt belong. Because Iām not pitching an idea to a publication or presenting my credentials as an authority, I am able to tackle subjects outside my expertise. Itās highly unlikely I could persuade a magazine to let me write an essay comparing Bob Fosse and Lenny Bruce, or find a thread connecting Felliniās Amarcord, Wes Andersonās The French Dispatch and Jacques Tatiās Playtime. (ā¦)
Freedom and doing it for free go together. Iāve resisted the idea of going the Substack or newsletter route. If I were to become conscious of having a subscriber base, Iād start trying to please them. And blogging should be the opposite of work. But if itās not compelled, blogging is compulsive: an itch I have to scratch. And for every post published, there are five that never get beyond notepad scrawls or fumes in the back of my mind
I think I have read, even shared, this piece before, but I just revisited it thanks to David Enzel and it resonated again with me, so here it goes.
#tech #eng