“The yule-log sparkled keen with frost,
No wing of wind the region swept,
But over all things brooding slept
The quiet sense of something lost.“
- Lord Alfred Tennyson, In Memoriam A. H. H. OBIIT MDCCCXXXIII: 78
It is only fitting that my first foray into this process be self-referential.
If I am not mistaken, the first time I encountered the word “blogging” was from an episode of Doctor Who. Not that I can remember which episode specifically, save for it being of the “newer” series and I believe featuring David Tennant. I recall the Doctor (presumably portrayed by Tennant) decrying the gossiping banter of his cohorts and using the term “blogging” to describe their conversation.
I’ve always liked that usage of the word, though I cannot find any established definition in support of it. Most, such as the Cambridge English Dictionary which the British show of Doctor Who undoubtedly consults for its scriptwriting, do require a degree of written word in the process of “blogging.” Urban Dictionary gives a pretty good one that I’ve grown to be fond of:
Whichever definition of blogging one prefers, all involve the sharing of words from one party to another through some medium, usually digital text. Obviously, there is a stigma attached to the process—as evidenced by the Doctor’s usage and by the Urban Dictionary definition—but as with most stigmas, I am of the mind that holding blogging as a whole in low-regard is at best naïve and at worst arrogantly ill-founded.
The human race has, alongside its opposable thumbs and disproportionately large cerebral cortex, a profound creativity and morality that provides us with a significant evolutionary advantage over other species on Earth. Our creativity has provided us with logistical advancements in the sharing of information time and again throughout history, from chisel and stone to the printing press and now to the Internet and digitalization. In every era we have shared thoughts and dreams with one another. That some frown upon doing so now is, to pick a favored word of mine, hogwash. We spend so much of our time thinking to ourselves, but so little sharing our thoughts with each other. The digital age, and social media from it, has alleviated this silence somewhat, much to the chagrin of cynics. But we can, as ever, do better.
It is as self-destructive to internalize one’s thoughts as it is diluting to ignore those of others. I genuinely believe that the power of communication is so great that it cannot be put into words, to the point that—if a certain well-known origin myth is to be believed—it required divine intervention to prohibit. That, then, is why this blog exists; not as an argument that it unto itself is a second Genesis, or that blogging is the mark of an evolutionary advantage (though that is an amusing argument), but rather that the expression of thought is among the most human of actions possible to the point where any pursuit of it is beneficial to our species as a whole. Likewise, too, to the willing acceptance (not necessarily agreement) of those thoughts’ inherent validity.
Put another way, “You’re entitled to your own opinion.”
It is here that this topic begins to border on a darker and more politicized subject matter, that of censorship, cancellation, and the debate over freedom of speech. And while that is a topic that I feel merits further discussion, I think it does so to such an extent as to be deserving of its own article at a later date. So, for now,
“We’re entitled to our own opinions.”
And that will have to be enough.
Where there is an art, there is also a science. History, archaeology. Philosophy, anthropology. The written musings of a blog, and also the technological backbone and economic theory behind it.
Now having established the artsy impetus for this blog’s creation, I would like to talk a bit about the process itself.
This is not the first website I’ve created, but it’s certainly the most professional looking. In college at UMass Amherst, each Computer Science student was given their own subdomain and a username/password with which they could change aspects of their webpage, as well as some measure of hosting space—not more than a few megabytes, if I’m not mistaken.
I do not remember much about the page I made, only that it was strikingly 90s-era HTML and devoid of any CSS whatsoever. (Or, in English, looked horrible) Later, also in college, I worked on a website for a class project, though I did not do much of the front-end design for that site at all, instead doing more back-end development. That was some time ago.
In any case, I must say that the tools available to the masses—which I now find myself to be a part of—are now quite extraordinary. Time does fly, and with it, the ease of access to technology! Throwing this site up took a small handful of hours across a small handful of days, and while it’s not the next Mona Lisa, I am of the mind that it came out quite well. And what a wide array of toys came with it for me to play with! An idle mind is the devil’s playground, and an idle website a sandbox for a developer. Undoubtedly, I’ll be tinkering with things in the weeks to come.
And while I am impressed with the raw technological power so readily available at my fingertips for what is comparatively not a very significant investment, I must confess that there is a great deal of obtuseness to the process. How often do Facebook or YouTube update their user interface, leaving veteran users disgruntled in the wake of their changes? Now imagine you’re trying to find out how to build a website yourself and all the tutorials and tips are horribly out of date and referring to buttons to push and packages to install, none of which exist anymore.
Welcome to web development. It is its own kind of hell.
But for some incomprehensible reason I studied this hell in school, so at least I knew to bring sunglasses for the perpetual screen time necessary to sort through things. Behold, product placement.
Web development aside, there is also the matter of what to include in a blog, and how much of it. I’ve already decided that this blog can viably contain anything because—as of yet—it is not for-profit, but research suggests that successful articles are “long reads” between 1,500 and 2,400 words with a sweet spot somewhere around 1,900. If you’ve been counting so far, I’d first like to say that you have my pity, but so far this article is just barely nearing 1,200.
Yikes. That’s not very SEO of me.
But there is something to be said for knowing one’s target audience. Mine is that of those willing to listen, and for them I’ll do my best not to ramble too much so as to give them their own due time to reply, for silence from any is a disservice to all.
I think Tennyson would agree.
As to the rest, I can give no hard schedule for new entries for this blog—one’s dedication to a hobby is pursuant to the machinations of the rest of their life. I want to do weekly, but biweekly is a safer bet. There is a list of subjects I am eager to write on, but I am not opposed to giving an opinion on a reader’s query; see Contact for such information.