blogging in isolation
Spicy confession: I donāt think I would blog or blog as much if I lived where I wanted to, surrounded by friends and family.
Itās not a really waste of time or anything, and itās fun! But whenever I am where my friends and my wifeās family live, surrounded by people, I live in the moment. I am happy, and even when Iām not, I donāt feel the need to be going online much or write something. Reading anything online feels almostā¦ repulsive, despite being away from social media. The content hasnāt changed and I genuinely care about the people whose blogs I read, but it just feels so far away too, almost irrelevant at the time. Like something to do later, but ālaterā gets pushed back more and more. I procrastinate the internet.
When I sit in the grass and watch the sky, the birds, the trees in my in-laws garden, I donāt think about my next blog post. While I hang out with people playing board games or singing karaoke or doing Jackbox or going to restaurants, I donāt see stuff online, therefore not getting inspiration about some opinion I will publish here. I donāt read stuff I disagree with or something I want to analyze. I donāt get the intense desire to immediately write out what Iām passionately thinking about at the moment because Iām not in a rabbit hole in my mind. Iām not neck deep in studies I think about recapturing and recontextualizing on my blog. Iām not letting my mind wander in the bathtub, furiously typing away in the notes app.
I sit in cars, in other peopleās apartments, in gardens and the internet doesnāt exist. I am present. I am too busy to be in my mind. I am too socially fulfilled to go seek it online.
When I think about what topics I wanna write about some time, it feels like another life, or another me. Itās for when Iām back home far away in the same country locked up in an apartment with almost no socializing. Itās there where I get back to more internet browsing, like going back to the fridge with lower standards (and more time). Itās my second choice, my replacement for the time between hanging out with my people.
I appreciate what I wrote, what I will still write, what I ābuiltā if you will - but Iād also have no problem with just stopping, taking breaks, or it all disappearing one day. I like writing, I like sorting my thoughts and documenting things, I like arguing for or against something; but I also acknowledge it requires a certain solitude, a certain overthinking in private, and caring about things I donāt care about when I am busy and socializing. Many things would have never been written without the isolation I periodically experience, and are things Iād look at now and go āWho the fuck even cares? Does it matter?ā
I know my mind runs in circles and I get a bit tense and high-strung after a few weeks away, and while this helps my writing, it also encourages meaningless navel-gazing and over-analyzing. Iād like to keep a balance and I want to acknowledge here how different I feel about what I publish depending on when you ask me.
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Published 04 May, 2025