Back to the Blog

I’ve written elsewhere (and I don’t think it’s an original thought) that Montaigne was the original blogger. Given his reputation as the progenitor of the written essay, in the sense of an “attempt”, I think this is warranted.

I wrote a few months ago about some changes in my reading, writing, and thinking habits. I deliberately decided to put writing on pause for a season. The last couple of years have not been without my own “attempts” at writing online, mostly through the newsletter. I’m proud of more than a few essays there.

But it’s been a couple of years since I’ve written a blog as traditionally understood: an informal web-log syndicated via open standards (e.g. RSS) on the open web. The newsletter, while I’m proud of it, lacks a certain whimsy. I feel the need to maintain a more coherent, deliberate voice there.

While I’m an avid user of X, and have actually come to enjoy aspects of the platform in recent years (though many denizens of the open web seem to feel differently), I haven’t had a place on the web that’s distinctly my own in some time. Part of the reason I stepped away from the “blogosphere” was that it became kind of a bummer. Despite its stated preference for fun, posts just seemed to repeat a negative, GASP-y, catastrophic worldview that was obsessed with politics and maintained a hostile disposition to technology, capitalism, and ambition. By contrast, I found a lot of people on X and writing in Substacks to be energetic, original, dynamic, thoughtful, and oddly hopeful.

That said, the beauty of a digital home is that it is entirely my own. So, I’m reinstating the blog. There are a few analogies for personal sites — playgrounds, gardens — but I think of this as my public workshop. A place for me to tinker with thoughts, ideas, and attempts at whatever I wish. I’ll still be posting to X, and my newsletter, but this is we’re I’ll act as “customer zero” for my own writing. I also may or may not backfill with older posts, we’ll see.

You can follow along in your own RSS reader here if you’d like, or just stop by whenever.