on having a blog (the cage is all i've ever known)
I don’t remember the exact sequence of events of how I discovered Bear. I believe it was a series of hyperlinks that brought me to one blog, then to Herman’s post, the sign up page and finally a dashboard.
I’ve been on the Internet for so long but I’ve never had a blog. I've read a lot of accounts here about the golden age of the Internet. I see and understand what we are yearning for, but I can't say I've experienced it myself.
My teenage years were spent on social media, primarily on stan twitter, where it wasn't entirely golden but I’ve met a lot of people and have customized and edited my profiles countless times through different fandoms that also sort of marked stages of my life. As for writing, I’ve kept journals and made it an on and off thing as I grew to love jotting about what happened to my day and that turned to joy in the hours I spent finding the right order of words, but these two worlds have never coincided properly.
Then finally, I was ready to share my thoughts for anyone to read. I knew these facts about myself and thought having a blog would make perfect sense. It should be fairly easy; all I have to do is be myself, and I can do anything I want. I’ve been doing it in my journals, I know a fair amount of HTML and CSS, how hard could it be? It feels kinda surreal that that was more or less 6 months ago now.
The time has passed and it’s not only when I’ve felt like I’ve changed the appearance of the blog for the 100th time when I realized I have never done both things in an online setting ever, in my life.
Be myself and do anything I want.
Blogging is everything I’ve expected and more when it comes to writing. I do minimal editing and just write about anything, but being myself? I’ve been finding it hard expressing myself truly in any other way than my words because social media simplified my having of an online presence. Everyone starts off with a generic template of a profile and all I had to do was to fill in my information. I see other people’s blogs and even get to learn about stuff that I didn’t even know websites could do. Blogrolls are like trips to an art gallery and my Facebook friends list is just… well, Facebook.
With social media’s restrictive nature, the usual short-form posts, the perfectly angled pictures, and god, the numbers and the algorithm and the ads. Oh, the distraction! It is just incredibly impossible to be as complex and authentic in comparison to having a blog.
Here on my blog, I can do anything I want; I can be as complex as I can be within the bounds of this site’s current viewport as you read this. But I don’t even have a favorite color. I like light and pastel tones. But does it really have to be the color of my blog? I’ve been consistent about the name I wanted it to have. Should I let that anchor the rest of the elements of the design? How about typography? I like serifs when I see them. But it seemed to be so professional. Then I changed it to the font I use when reading, but then thought better because now it doesn’t match the colors and the vibe. Should I have this page? Should I have that? How can I introduce myself? And more questions and crises about my identity or the possibility of never being able to truly express it because of my indecision and lack of creativity.
Every time I post and come to the dashboard, I can’t help but adjust something. I do feel satisfaction here and there when I get to make it look like how I want. Then I look at it after a few hours or days, then it fades, and my blog becomes a chameleon, a reflection of whatever mood I’m in whenever I get the chance to log in.
Here is the confusing bit. I love Bear Blog because my perception of having a blog changed when I discovered this is a platform where words outweigh everything else. Now I’m here, why is it that I can’t help but care about the appearance? I’m essentially speaking to the void! I don’t know what image I think I’m protecting when nobody even knows me here!
Why do I still care?
As much as I don’t want to admit it, I am still thinking about how I will be perceived. I still operate on the echo of expectations people on social media have. I’ve been in a cage and I don’t know what to do now it’s open because it is all I’ve ever known.
I’ve been so conscious about how this all looks but I know there are a variety of reasons why people have made the big and small choices that resulted in the appearance of blogs. In my previous post, I wrote about the current theme of my blog and it was just about the right amount of effort with the whole separate post for it which makes it more official, mostly so I can remember why I chose it.
I guess I just want to say that having my own blog and curating this space of mine has been one of my most unexpected and challenging endeavors in a while. But it is also an exploration towards introspection and gaining self-awareness, so I realized soon enough the activity will reveal facets of myself I’ve never seen before. I’m going to be confronted by this every step of the way, but it’s a step away from the habit of seeking validation from strangers, something social media imposed on me.
I’m out of my comfort zone here and it’s probably going to feel like that for a while as of writing, but I have to trust it is only through this way I can get what I want from this blog. To put it simply, it just boils down to having an outlet to express my thoughts and just trying to be a better person.
Despite my apparent frustration initially, it is not directed towards the making of my blog, and most certainly, it is not to scare anyone off of creating their own. I want to believe now that this is part of the process. Being able to write like this, taking my time in every post, putting my heart and soul into it without ever knowing in certainty how and how far it will be received, is a humbling experience. I want to tell myself that everything about it requires my effort, so at the end of the day, it is human.
A true blue blog is deliberate and intentional. I made it for a future me that wants to read about what her past self was thinking at some point in time, what moved me and made me tick. There will be some memories, too. So no matter what it looks like right now, I made my blog out of nothing but my own vulnerability, my love for writing and myself.
Thank you for stopping by!
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