obligatory preamble

the start of something

welcome to the point-in-time digital ribbon-cutting of my personal website. you are here, it is now, and i appreciate your visit. my intention for this site is to create a place where I can organize my thoughts, catalog things that I find interesting, and establish a sense of longevity and permanence to my digital interactions. i want to carve out a little slice of the internet that i can call my own, a popular pastime that i grew up with that has long since been abandoned and replaced by something much emptier and automated.

at one point I would have called myself a  "liberal techno-optimist", and maybe that's still the case. But a lot has changed over the past ten or so years, much of which has prompted me to take a step back, re-evaluate my content consumption and production habits, and step forward in a more productive and prosperous way.

like many people i find myself increasingly scatterbrained and conflicted by the modern world, pulled in every which direction by heaps of content, manipulative algorithms, and synthetic dopamine, all while being unable to tell if many things are even real (thanks to a.i.).

of course, this trend is nothing new, and I wouldn't consider myself anything near a pioneer or the like. there has been an increase in concepts like digital minimalism and unplugging as a direct result to the onslaught of the content machine.

in defense of the personal website

Like other elder millennials, I grew up alongside the maturation of the internet and associated technologies. what started as uncharted territory of immediately-accessible information quickly turned into people wanting to put their own stamp on things; to make a place for themselves and have a sense of ownership. what started with aol kids only turned into carving out one's own piece of digital real-estate.

a great example of this is geocities - all user-created pages were self-organized into different neighborhoods, each focused on a specific topic or area of interest.

winamp skins, aol instant messenger themes, and complete customization of xanga blogs, geogities microsites and myspace pages.

what we've lost

well, what's the point?

there isn't one. and the best part? there doesn't have to be.

what to expect

• tending to my digital garden
• cataloging different forms of media that I've completed, like books, music, movies, etc.
• storing bookmarks and sharing links to various importing things across the internet.
• long-form content like blog posts

what's next

what a time to be alive - just need to make sure the living is done with purpose and perspective. or else companies and content creators are going to be doing the living for us.