Holy Shit, I Have A Website

Holy shit, I have a website!

A few years ago, I quit social media. First, it was twitter. Then, youtube. I tried to make the fediverse work, and I am still active on peertube, but beyond that, I find that I just don't vibe with the format of most social media. It's a combination of interacting with more strangers than I would like to in a small period of time, and the fact that once I start scrolling, I can't stop. I find myself getting drawn heavily into issues that I'm not nearly smart or experienced enough to talk about to begin with, most of which don't even affect me anyway.

When I finally quit for good (with the exception of peertube), the first thing I noticed is that I didn't feel quite so embarrassed about myself all the time - when I look back at old posts, even from only a few days ago, I usually think, "oh my god, why in the *world* did I say that?!"

The more time went on, the more I found myself still wanting to participate in the online conversation somehow. I made a few silly videos, and that was pretty fun, so I'll probably keep doing that. I've been slowly easing back into posting my music from time to time as well. But I kept coming back to one thought: holy shit, I have a website!

That's roughly the story behind the existence of this blog. However, I started it with a particular theme in mind, wanting to approach it less like social media and more like "refined," proofread writing. My thinking at the time was that I would have multiple blogs dedicated to whatever topics I wanted to talk about. As time goes on though, I notice that I'm not engaging with this blog. Of course, that's not entirely because it's a bad idea - my Baba (grandmother) recently passed away, and I've been grieving the way I do, which is to alternate between looking completely normal and then suddenly becoming an inconsolable wreck. However, the idea that I initially had has come to feel like a chore, one that I have been skipping the majority of the time.

Today, I had another thought: holy shit, I have a website, and I can put *anything I want* on it!

For at least the last three days, I'd been considering consolidating two of the other blogs I've been planning to do (*Mistakes of the Day* and *Correct Me If I'm Wrong*) into this one, and today the thought struck me that I can just post whatever I want on here. I could make this entire website a shrine dedicated to Clippy. I could post nothing but "I've been watching [show] lately. It's good." I could maintain the theme, abandon the theme, or [*do both at the same time.*](https://inv.nadeko.net/watch?v=KoN84JeMe5A)

I think what I really want is somewhere in the exact middle between "mindlessly posting every passing thought into the void," which is how I used to behave on twitter, and "writing with an explicit purpose in mind." I think the name "Strikes n Gutters" still fits, because if I go forward with posting whatever thoughts I want to share, I'll probably still be posting about my ups and downs as I strive to reach my goals anyway. I'll probably talk a lot about things like mental health and productivity. Furthermore, I'll probably say some things that are surprisingly insightful, and some things that are just plain stupid. That's just how it is sometimes. Going foward, I'm not going to try to make "blogging once a day/week" a thing, but I am going to try to post more often on an unscheduled, "whenever I feel like it" basis - even if I don't say anything except "rewatched the Emperor's New Groove for the 40th time today." In keeping with that theme: I'm going to post this entry without even proofreading it!

I'll probably end up feeling embarrassed about myself more often again, but I've decided I'm fine with that. That's just [the way she goes.](http://inv.nadeko.net/watch?v=gtM9xD-Ky7E) 

Keep takin' 'er easy.

tags: blogging, webmaster, indieweb