It’s back! This blog had a spell of downtime after I canceled the hosting to save some money. Now I’ve set up shop with a better and cheaper host and imported all posts from the old site. Unfortunately the images didn’t carry over. Someday I will go back and correct those. But as long as the words are here, I’m satisfied that the site is restored.
Great. Why?
I don’t have any readers. That isn’t a complaint, to be clear. Actually I’ve never even looked at my analytics. Maybe I’m huge overseas for having such good taste in movies. But I’m certain that at most 3 people will read this and I could contact them all on Discord if I wanted.
So I honestly ask myself: Why? Why did you just shell out a hundred bucks to add a few more years of life to a blog you don’t even seem to enjoy writing for? What is so alluring about having a website?
I’ve Got Something to Say, Probably!
Last week at Barnes & Noble I bought a new notebook. It has a durable crimson cover with a hatch pattern, unlined pages, and a ribbon for keeping place. I considered what I could use this notebook for. It’s just barely too large to fit in my pocket, an inconvenient size for daily planning or organizational notes. Perhaps ideas for my newly restored blog?
The use will come later, I ultimately decided. For the moment I brought it home and put it in my desk drawer with the other empty notebooks.
I dare you to tell me you’ve never done that. It’s not about ideas or productivity. We’re drawn to it as a symbol of hope. Someday I will fill these pages. Someday I will have the creativity and courage to use it as intended without feeling guilty on its behalf. Today, I suppose I must be enjoying its pristine perfection aesthetically.
I could have saved money launching this blog first as a more economical alternative. An empty draft post has exactly the same potential. It’s a short story, and an amusing autobiographical anecdote, and even a moving poem. It’s nothing, so it’s everything. Making it something is the unpleasant business of facing reality.
Yet my weakness for the allure of the blank page always wins, and someday I will turn that into a strength.
That Time I Tried to Start Three Websites at Once
Long-time readers may have noticed my site used to have a curious URL: akaping.com. I had registered it as a pair with akaeric.com. The idea was to use the former to write about topics relevant to my internet handle—speedrunning and video games, perhaps, as well as casual musings on movies—and to use my real name for subjects I wouldn’t mind associating with it. At the time I was in the middle of a career shift where that could have been practical. Finally, a third domain registered as my full name would point to a static professional website. I still think this plan made sense, and someday I will set up that professional site.
Shortly after buying all these domains, and a couple others for redirection as backup, I was hired into a job not quite in my target field that obviated the need for a professional website for the time being. As a result, akaeric.com never launched and the domain in my full name was only ever used for an email address. They all now redirect here. On the bright side, the broken promise of akaping.com is now restored for your reading pleasure.
Clearly I suffer, frequently and publicly, from the paralysis of overambition. Lesson learned: Make no promises. A cynical lesson, I admit, but a necessary personal one.
Antisocial Media
Despite my better instincts, I, like many, am still waiting for an answer to “What’s the next Twitter?” In the two years since Elon Musk bought it there are still only annual threats of exodus that seem to shave users at the margins without designating a successor. I’ve always said that successor will be whichever platform attracts the sports conversation. So far that’s been X, as well as Reddit which is a different type of nightmare.
But what do X and Reddit have that make them so unpleasant? Easy: Users. Which is exactly what a private blog does not have. Here the communication runs one way, and I’m in total control over the environment.
The more I consider what I want out of social media, the more I realize my ideal “social media” isn’t one platform but a network of blogs that I read because I choose to. (Is this the promise of Substack?) That’s why I’ve always made sure every iteration of this blog draws attention to the RSS feed.
And in my utopia we’ll blog about… What, exactly? Is a website where the admin is already friends with all the visitors a successful website?
What Are We Doing Here, Anyway?
Writing anything in a medium-to-long format, no matter how banal, takes a commitment of time and energy. Writing coherently requires additional care and effort. Writing meaningfully requires research. It’s a lesson I learn and relearn every time I make a commitment to write more.
But I keep making that commitment. Because while I don’t like the feeling of writing, I think I love the feeling of having written. The qualifier is the reason I’m not sufficiently ambitious to be successful with it.
I do have things to say. I have opinions, and defining and defending those opinions makes them stronger. I like to talk about my interests, and if I have to make up an audience to indulge myself, so be it. I am my own primary audience.
Why do I insist on having a website? I suppose it’s proof that I’m here. It’s an oasis of creative authority in an increasingly corrosive internet. And it’s an expression of hope, like saying “Someday I will…” I’m not ready to admit that I won’t.