Starting with Blogging
There have been already million articles about social media and their algorhitmic hell and what to do about it. One thing is clear - classic blogging is probably the best way how to publish your thoughts and not feed the social monster. But classic blogging requires time. And that means it is mostly a little bit more thought out than a social media post.
The Why and How and Where
I decided to blog some time last year, but never really had will to actually do it. There were some attempts (as seen on this very blog) but most of them were just a spur of the moment things. The ingredient which was missing the most from my pursuit of blogging was time. With a small family and plethora of family-related issues, I simply had none. But then something happened. I maintained a small, personal, Slovak blog for my own reviews of metal albums I liked and was asked by some internet friends if I would like to try it out for a bigger site. So I did. Thus I started to write for The Goat Review a small-ish metal blog, but with a very enthusiastic ensemble and great people all around. This is where most of my writing time went and still goes. This is also why I won't publish any metal related content except the weekly new release round-ups.
Why is blogging good for me?
I always entertain the idea of starting a journal, but I am not a person who can adhere to anything requiring discipline for a long time. Journaling evokes the expectation of doing it regularly, almost daily. This is a daunting requirement and my brain rejects such things. Blogging on the other hand does not put any shackles of regularity on my fingers. I do wish to do it regularly, but that means whatever I think is regular. Weekly? Every other day? Once a month? All of those? Who knows.
Maybe it is just a placebo created by language, but blogging is less scary than journaling. Yet it can be the same. Often, I want to put my thoughts on paper and share them with the world, however I am not sure if the world wants to see them. Blogging is not forcing them on to anybody. It just exists.
Obsidian to the rescue
Writing in general does not require much. I could use pen and paper. Or pen and a notebook. The problem is, I can't write neatly enough to be able to read it after some time. Writing on a smartphone is a huge pain anyway, so that's not even considered. Writing directly on a computer seems like the best approach obviously. This is what I do for the Goat Review blog and that's how I actually enjoy writing.
Finding the right tool to write is another story. Do I need something simple like nano or vim? I tried. Not for me. I like to have my previous "writings" close to me, so I can cross-check when needed. I also like to be flexible with media, which terminal based editors obviously lack.
I use markdown for many years already. It seems to be supported by a lot of tools, often not even openly. Formatting in markdown is a muscle memory affair for me. Obsidian is subjectively the best tool for my kind of workflow. It works great as a mindless note-taking app, as well as a serious writing tool. Its markdown support is fantastic and the ability to theme the application to my liking is a huge bonus. The killer feature of Obsidian is the fact that under all of that is just a simple folder structure that can live anywhere on your system. No hidden files, no proprietary bullshit. Just your .md files and your folders.
The power of the Bear
Finding a place to host my thoughts (and lists and photos) is not easy. Self-host or not? PHP or static sites? In the past I worked with Wordpress, but it has become a moloch, a total overkill for simple personal blog. I tried Hugo and I liked how it worked. It wasn't too complicated from the default state, but I would run into some issues from time to time - especially when playing with themes. Self-hosting provides a significant amount of data freedom, but also takes away a significant amount of time.
After I decided, that a self-hosted blog is not for me, I started looking around for some other solutions. Again, Wordpress was a no. Automattic has another service - Tumblr. I tried to use that one for some time, especially for photoblog. It's not bad, but it's still very ... Tumblr-ly? It's weird, it's quirky, it also has stuff I really don't need. And it always looks different to readers, especially if they are not a Tumblr user.
I noticed Bear Blog somewhere on Hacker News, I believe. I immediately liked the simplicity. Text on white background. No distractions. Markdown support. It literally ticked all the boxes one by one. Will it survive? What are the plans? Fortunately, Bear Blog has a great manifesto which explains the mission and the plans for the future. I don't need more. It is a nice place, it works, and Herman seems like a nice guy. Finally a tiny place on the internet.
Hopefully writing blog posts will become a habit for me. If it does - see you next time!