I know what I want to still be doing when I grow up: I want to still have a blog.

Small b blogging is learning to write and think with the network. Small b blogging is writing content designed for small deliberate audiences and showing it to them. Small b blogging is deliberately chasing interesting ideas over pageviews and scale.

Being on the internet, nay, growing up through the internet, has given me some perspective about maintaining healthy forms of expression. I’ve kept this current site going since 2011, after destroying every other website I’ve ever created. Decades later, I wish I had any of that left to remind myself of who I was and the journey I’ve taken. The reason I took down all of those goofy sites and poorly written prose was because I didn’t think it mattered.

Which leads me to this next quote:

Too much content on the web is designed for scale, for sharing, for gloss and finish. It’s mass media, whether it’s made by a media company or an individual acting like one. So when people think of blogging their natural reference point is create something that looks like the mass media they’re consuming. Content designed for pageviews and scale.

This point hit home for me, just not on its face value, per se. Too much of my time living in the digital world was focussed externally. I wanted to share, not express. I looked to the sky and then considered the kind of telescope I needed to please the spheres.

Now, I don’t think about sharing, or the best platform fit for my ‘content’. I consider what I want to say and express myself. If that ultimately ends up in the open, then I’ll find a home for it (preferably here, on my digital homestead).

I hope I have the fortitude to hold on to this wisdom. Or, at least, the strength to crawl back when I’ve erred and strayed. A vast network of people and ideas is worth keeping alive, one tiny, lowercase ‘b’ blog at a time.