Blogging as self-expression

Filed under: blogging

Tyler Cowen wrote:

Blogging makes us more oriented toward an intellectual bottom line, more interested in the directly empirical, more tolerant of human differences, more analytical in the course of daily life, more interested in people who are interesting, and less patient with Continental philosophy. All you bloggers out there, or spouses of bloggers, what effects do you notice?

For me, it’s about self-expression (alongside self-experimentation). I work as an SEO for 35 hours a week so my entire career revolves around the Web. But there are limits to what I can do with that because I have responsibility to my employer and my clients. Outside those hours, I can blog about anything I want and say whatever I want (within reason of course). If I want to write a blog post comprised of a single sentence or a sole image, I can. I love that freedom and it took me a while to fully embrace it.

As for tolerance to human differences, I’m quite the opposite because human differences often involve oppression and I refuse to tolerate that in any form. I don’t blog about things I don’t agree with because plenty of other people do that and that’s not what I blog for. People may allude that to an echo chamber but it’s my party and I’ll blog what I want to—notably what I believe in with conviction.

The effects of all of this is a change in how I consume media and how I engage with it. I tweeted last night how my connection with Twitter, and social media in general, had diminished. I don’t read my TL as much as specific lists that give me exactly what I want and nothing more. It saves me doomscrolling and I can be online without wishing I wasn’t (as much). Blogging is my outlet and escape from whatever the hell is happening out there and it has saved me during this pandemic.

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1 Year Later