3 ms·

If you want trade the cocaine that is HN with a weed variety, you should blog. It's really fufilling. I blog publicly but also journal privately using git and

by foxhop 7y ago

If you want trade the cocaine that is HN with a weed variety, you should blog. It's really fufilling. I blog publicly but also journal privately using git and vim. I have been on and off for about 5 years. The raw thoughts rarely show the light of day, but sometimes I synthesize my journal entries as blog posts or HN comments. I refine my true self for the public. This saves me from letter downvotes sway what I believe. By the time I post on HN I've already collected my thoughts in my other journals. I do feel very disconnected from people these days. It's been about a little over a year since moving my of my status updates to Mastodon from Twitter where I follow exactly one IRL friend from high school, a friend from two jobs ago, a person who found me randomly, and a customer for Remarkbox. When I do post on Twitter it's often a link to my Mastodon post, or a link to my blog, or side project I'm working on. It's sort of selfish but I only read tweets on my timeline up to the first ad, which is typically a scroll and a half on my phone. In this way, I sort of use Twitter as a broadcast, like updating a RSS feed with something I'm proud of. I rarely digest the tweets others put on there. This seems selfish, but really it's not.

jodrellblank 7y ago
> you should blog. It's really fufilling. In what way? Do you write for yourself then make it public not caring if anyone sees? That doesn't sound fulfilling; I have blog posts over the years which I have no idea if anyone ever saw and it feels a bit of a waste. Do you write as if you're trying to contribute to the world? Then doesn't that depend on feedback to know if you are succeeding or failing, and put you in the mind of "I have to create something good" as a competitor in the world of content-creation competition?
- logram 7y ago
  There's this quote from Kundera's The unbearable lightness of being. Perhaps it makes sense in this context. We all need someone to look at us. We can be divided into four categories according to the kind of look we wish to live under. The first category longs for the look of an infinite number of anonymous eyes, in other words, for the look of the public. That is the case with the German singer, the American actress, and even the tall, stooped editor with the big chin. He was accustomed to his readers, and when one day the Russians banned his newspaper, he had the feeling that the atmosphere was suddenly a hundred times thinner. Nothing could replace the look of unknown eyes. He thought he would suffocate. Then one day he realized that he was constantly being followed, bugged, and surreptitiously photographed in the street. Suddenly he had anonymous eyes on him and he could breathe again! He began making theatrical speeches to the microphones in his wall. In the police, he had found his lost public. The second category is made up of people who have a vital need to be looked at by many known eyes. They are the tireless hosts of cocktail parties and dinners. They are happier than the people in the first category, who, when they lose their public, have the feeling that the lights have gone out in the room of their lives. This happens to nearly all of them sooner or later. People in the second category, on the other hand, can always come up with the eyes they need. Marie-Claude and her daughter belong in the second category. Then there is the third category, the category of people who need to be constantly before the eyes of the person they love. Their situation is as dangerous as the situation of people in the first category. One day the eyes of their beloved will close, and the room will go dark. Tereza and Tomas belong in the third category. And finally there is the fourth category, the rarest, the category of people who live in the imaginary eyes of those who are not present. They are the dreamers. Franz, for example. He traveled to the borders of Cambodia only for Sabina. As the bus bumped along the Thai road, he could feel her eyes fixed on him in a long stare.
- foxhop 7y ago
  From the comments I get on my blog (shameful plug, I run Remarkbox, hosted comments for static sites) I know I have changed the world, if at least just a bit. I write primarily for myself, but I do put my words into a form that others could digest, understand, and learn from. The words on my blog may be the butterfly flapping her wings. I do not and likely cannot measure how much my writing changes the world and trying to do so often discouraged me from writing. Do book authors really know how much their work changes the world? To me, it seems like an infinitely complex relationship. I can tell you I have saved many people time on their research and learning and I'm sure I've swayed some to think differently, more like me. My blog is the storm, ans is cast out to the world and left to chaos and entropy to find who it must. Links in my profile.

by foxhop 7y ago

jodrellblank 7y ago

> you should blog. It's really fufilling. In what way? Do you write for yourself then make it public not caring if anyone sees? That doesn't sound fulfilling; I have blog posts over the years which I have no idea if anyone ever saw and it feels a bit of a waste. Do you write as if you're trying to contribute to the world? Then doesn't that depend on feedback to know if you are succeeding or failing, and put you in the mind of "I have to create something good" as a competitor in the world of content-creation competition?

logram 7y ago
There's this quote from Kundera's The unbearable lightness of being. Perhaps it makes sense in this context. We all need someone to look at us. We can be divided into four categories according to the kind of look we wish to live under. The first category longs for the look of an infinite number of anonymous eyes, in other words, for the look of the public. That is the case with the German singer, the American actress, and even the tall, stooped editor with the big chin. He was accustomed to his readers, and when one day the Russians banned his newspaper, he had the feeling that the atmosphere was suddenly a hundred times thinner. Nothing could replace the look of unknown eyes. He thought he would suffocate. Then one day he realized that he was constantly being followed, bugged, and surreptitiously photographed in the street. Suddenly he had anonymous eyes on him and he could breathe again! He began making theatrical speeches to the microphones in his wall. In the police, he had found his lost public. The second category is made up of people who have a vital need to be looked at by many known eyes. They are the tireless hosts of cocktail parties and dinners. They are happier than the people in the first category, who, when they lose their public, have the feeling that the lights have gone out in the room of their lives. This happens to nearly all of them sooner or later. People in the second category, on the other hand, can always come up with the eyes they need. Marie-Claude and her daughter belong in the second category. Then there is the third category, the category of people who need to be constantly before the eyes of the person they love. Their situation is as dangerous as the situation of people in the first category. One day the eyes of their beloved will close, and the room will go dark. Tereza and Tomas belong in the third category. And finally there is the fourth category, the rarest, the category of people who live in the imaginary eyes of those who are not present. They are the dreamers. Franz, for example. He traveled to the borders of Cambodia only for Sabina. As the bus bumped along the Thai road, he could feel her eyes fixed on him in a long stare.
foxhop 7y ago
From the comments I get on my blog (shameful plug, I run Remarkbox, hosted comments for static sites) I know I have changed the world, if at least just a bit. I write primarily for myself, but I do put my words into a form that others could digest, understand, and learn from. The words on my blog may be the butterfly flapping her wings. I do not and likely cannot measure how much my writing changes the world and trying to do so often discouraged me from writing. Do book authors really know how much their work changes the world? To me, it seems like an infinitely complex relationship. I can tell you I have saved many people time on their research and learning and I'm sure I've swayed some to think differently, more like me. My blog is the storm, ans is cast out to the world and left to chaos and entropy to find who it must. Links in my profile.