I’ve been wrestling back and forth for years on whether I wanted to start a blog or really any substantive, coherent content online. I’ve woken up in cold sweats stressing over this decision (not really, but sort of). Been questioned over and over about my online content. When meeting with potential collaborators or from folks just trying to get to know me they always ask, “Where can I see your work online?” I have to come back with some sputtering meandering response to a hobbled together assortment of scant online sources, “Uhh, ugh, uhm you can see my dead github or my private bitbucket, or ooh, my linkedin —with a goofy, but charming grin”. But I knew that wasn’t it. I started developing alopecia spots in my head and beard (not really a direct result, but it happened nonetheless). Some of the reasons why I was in analysis paralysis was because I am doing a lot of “stuff”. I have an extremely diversified experience portfolio (will be covered in a future post), I’ve learned a wide variety of topics, and I’m working on a number of different solutions. But I could have definitely just wrote about it all. That’s what I’m planning to do now because there’s no time like the present. Now that I decided to do it I figured it was helpful to do some self-work to understand why I was so reticent to create online and to outline how I would create.
It’s not like I'm incapable as a web user. I’ve actually been a self-taught software engineer for over 10 years who possesses some sort of mastery over the interwebs. I’ve even had some experience in my early youth using sites and blogs as the Internet was developing. I was literally on all those geocities sites internet pioneers were creating (probably YOUR site too). Not only do I know how to use the web, I can and have created a lot of web and mobile solutions. And I use the web a lot. Mostly as a consumer though. To read, research, learn, and marginally maintain online connections. I only produce for work (paid and pleasure) or my many different bootstrapped startups (education, marketing, construction, and sports -tech industries). I’m on social media, albeit twitter or linkedin are the only ones that I actually might use regularly. I have a sign in with no activity on other platforms like instagram and facebook. I have read literally hundreds of blogs and articles, but only created drafts that I was never satisfied with. Consuming information online like a web-based Pac-Man without adding much to the platforms that I’ve gained so much from. To me, content was different from the software platforms I built. To be real though, the internet content directly provided me with a large part of the education, exposure, and community I used to become the person I am today. I didn’t know what it was, but I had to figure out what was stopping me; beyond not resonating with the value of many platforms that provide easy access to regular production.
Obviously I see value with these platforms and tools online because I use them often and keep coming back. Yet something was stopping me from contributing. My processes, interests, and needs have diverged from what these platforms offered. I would rather connect with people directly via phone or email (some “old-school” behavior that I’m working to evolve). At the same time the internet provided me with the resources to develop my own self-directed schooling. I viewed, analyzed, and exposed myself to novelty and difference because I had access to FREE online resources. Now I was getting closer to the source: my blocker, the “free-99” dilemma in me.
I really didn’t want to provide free resources to people whose goals were/are to extract value from me. Yet at the same time I was doing the same thing (hence the internal dilemma I was debating with myself). I still feel like I deserve more as reparations for the oppression myself and other frontline communities have faced. I didn’t want the dominant culture to vulture me without me receiving some direct benefit. So many times folks from frontline communities give something great to the world only to have it “whitesplained” by someone with more privilege (see Box Braids and much more). Free knowledge didn’t feel like enough reciprocity from folks who’d rather not do the work that I had done to capture and upload the new knowledge into my mind. What drove me along this autodidactic path was my boredom and total aimlessness/emptiness early in my career (and still occurs from time to time). My vast experience, speculative (bordering on contrarian) perspective, and the natural “spidey-sense” drove me to search for direction and meaning somewhere in the world. The web offered me a portal to search the world for that meaning. I felt like I didn’t have many examples or a playbook to move inside or through the world that I was in to one that affirmed all of me. I found this through different sections of the internet. I even connected with others across the world to find my own unique community through online sources. Despite that I still use phone and email to communicate with that community after connecting with them. Looking back at it now, it was a lot of work. Albeit, very necessary work. But my personal work (that can definitely translate to the personal work of others) deserves some sort of compensation if I offer it, right?
To add to the blockers holding me back from paying the internet back (or forward), I am an engineer (went to college for Electrical and Computer Engineering). I never did much writing and I never felt comfortable with it. I definitely didn’t get involved in blogging at the least or see the need. Writing was also somewhat involved in podcasting or video (I think, but either way I don’t really like the sound of my voice --yet another personal blocker). That was until I made the effort to add writing to my toolkit. To improve my writing and stop that from excuse from blocking me. I saw writing as a skill that could spread my innovation and perspective beyond the background lines of code for software. I went on my normal self-directed mission for all skills that I add to my personal toolkit. I absorbed writing resources and best practices online. Those baselines shored up my perceived lack of confidence in writing. I studied how to write online, read blogs and tutorials, connected with friends to provide feedback, and even printed an early version of my novella (just learned what that was, so don’t worry if you don’t). As a final deliverable, I decided to write a speculative sci-fi novella (with 8-10 more concepts in the hopper). Again consuming without giving back much back until now. --Although I know the companies that provide these platforms aren’t starving as they make money off my eyeballs from advertisers or passing around the data they gather on my online behavior.
With the fear of writing beginning to dissipate, I still didn’t feel a strong enough conviction drawing me to write a blog or even give back to the internet that gave me so much. For who, for what, and for why? Is it worth my time? Is it even valuable? Then I thought about my experience and went back to basics, “Didn’t I find value in what others had created?” To educate me. To expose me. To find my community. Of course, I did. That was the value right there. That’s it. Enough thinking my way out of doing it. The impetus for me to produce online for others. To blog. Do a podcast. Whatever necessary to share my journey, insights, and grow the community that I connected with online and offline. I had to let go of the little capitalist voice in my head. Telling me to game the system to extract as much value as I could without giving anything until I get my worth for it (free-rider). I had to give back what I had used to build me. So someone else that may be in the situation I was in, whether younger or older or richer or poorer or taller or shorter, can access the education, exposure, and community that THEY may need (or inspire them in some way to find theirs). To find their greatness. To bring it to the world. To bring the changes we need and push us forward. So this is my first real blog. I will begin producing. To offer the full, wild, haphazardly logical, rare package that I am. Offering value to the online web of information we should all be able to access and value from. Welcome to my journey’s meandering, contemplative journal. Feel free to learn, grow, and connect. I hope I can bring as much value as I’ve gained myself.