Blogging For Impulse Control: A Recommendation

Forgotten aspects of the medium for 2024

I've discovered a way to shave a few atoms off the bulk of my daily shame, or remembered. Writing frequently for work in the five years I spent on staff temporarily trained my brain to point the firehose of its worst expression in a direction other than my phone. Tweeting and instagramming and whatever other platform I'd be on if I let myself is perfectly fine, I don't really think it does me much harm, but I don't necessarily enjoy the process through which I disburden myself of an urgent thought, feel better, reread it, delete, then proceed with my life.

I tried to explain the feeling of needing to share something a little bit in the talk I did with Merve at Wesleyan (she is such a genius for having talks relevant to students that are also a podcast that's also a transcript series) but did not do a great job except I think to link it to the idea of the monastic. It can be a good impulse for work, that feeling of not wishing to socialize but having something you absolutely need to tell somebody—maybe even the only thing that can yank you daily to the little sharing rectangle church, or actual church. Something will happen overnight and in the morning you just have to talk about it.

Anyway now I just open the CMS of this blog instead, or try to. I don't necessarily do anything, or I type my stupidest ideas in drafts then leave them there. Then I have to see a list of those drafts before I start writing anything else stupid, which is a slightly better record of my past misdeeds than the previous system provided. I don't have to delete them, and better yet I don't have to share them in the first place.

Have you considered having your own blog? People have to come here voluntarily, so it's their fault if they don't like it. There's no "why am I seeing this on my FYP" performance-commenting. Amazing! it isn't even self-promotion. You can express yourself but it is not social media—and I need to emphasize this—even if you're using a proprietary platform. Comments aren't social media. Writing down your thoughts is something else. This stuff is free and I have a horrible suspicion it isn't hurting anybody.