jlumen

Over the weekend, I got a chance to go through some of my old blogs. Back then I could write a 5 paragraph post so easily, it makes my head spin now. What changed? I'm not the sort that uses ChatGPT to generate every piece of writing. Quite honestly the only reason I use it, is at work sometimes because it's simply taking me longer than my job will allow to come up with a coherent sentence. That I then beat myself up again for.

It's had me thinking about why this is. Of course the way that my interaction with the internet has changed over the past 20+ years. There's a lack of anonymity that I do think leads me to be incredibly cautious... aside from maybe a few reddit comments. Perhaps that's not a bad thing considering I do want to be able to communicate better on a public level. Yet in some ways I think it does still hold me back. I used to share my hopes and reams and insane goals on a Livejournal. Some of which were more realistic than others. Become an engineer? challenging but realistic and now goal accomplished that I maintain in growing my career. Reaching a double digit weight? Unrealistic and even at 5'3" pretty unhealthy considering my build and genetics.

There's a lot more scrolling, so so much scrolling. Less creating. Crochet, knitting, and motherhood does set a constant reminder that I should reconsider whenever I fall into a doom loop of scrolling. Not just the busyness of motherhood but wanting to set a positive example as well. I don't allow my son to play with phones or tablets so I ought to practice what I preach. Whenever I need to be on my phone, I tell him it's for work, ordering groceries, or some other specific task. It does help.

The curation of online media I think has also affected me. It seems everything needs to be so perfect and polished which is a procrastinator's enemy. I think part of this process is simply accepting that some posts are going to be better than others. Hopefully with an upward trajectory.

Titling this post, "Is writing for the sake of writing pointless?" did have a point, irony in of itself.

I could lament the pixel art, the css layouts, the sheet music I wrote that's now long gone. Push them aside and say that was of another age. Or just as in the time I had in these moments for analog and digital journaling; just chug a long and begin again.