Year 2024. There’s Twitter / X, Medium, Facebook, social media platform and plethora of other writing sites with “Write For Us”. So, why write a blog? It’s decent enough as a portfolio website, do I want to use it as a blog? Would my future clients get deterred? Would I regret this decision?
I dilly-dallied about it, on whether this will be a career-limiting move, or a big boost to my mental health and well-being. In the end, I decided to take the plunge, and I managed to narrow it down to 4 main reasons.
Reason 1: Self-development and Growth
Blogging is a good way to document my growth. Of course, there’s risk, as I need to learn what sharing that can be beneficial and what’s better to be kept alone.
Additionally, WordPress is an interesting platform to get used to. It doesn’t exactly have the out-of-the-box ease like Blogspot, and some security risk comes with plugins, but the ability to customize into what you want and to self-host it makes it a good playing ground for an average tech person like me. Not too technical like Jekyll, not as easy as Blogspot.
Reason 2: Nostalgia
I missed my blog-walking days. If I can be honest, the current social media felt…turbulent. It’s like awkwardly attending a festival invited by your family and friends, yet you end up standing in the middle of the road, surrounded by bustling crowd. There’s tidbits of interesting events occurring here and there, however often times you find yourself overwhelmed.
Blog-walking however, is almost like window-shopping. Calmer, relaxed, and with deeper connection. I have this different definition of blogging vs article-writing in my mind. Article-writing is like coming to the workplace or shopping mall; it’s good and jam-packed with information. Blogging is sipping a cup of warm tea at the window seat, in the rain, speaking about random epiphanies to close friends.
Reason 3: Safe Space, a Home
There’s no place like home. Even with many platforms available in the market, there’s always the risk of being booted out. Writing for others means to write by their rules too. Here? It’s my home. A safe space. Away from judgement.
It would be a pleasant surprise if some people stumbled upon the blog section and enjoyed my raw writings, but I won’t feel so isolated as much as when I share things that I felt emotionally connected to on another platform only to realize nobody shares the same feeling. In a sense, I don’t mind being alone, I just don’t relish feeling lonely. Unfortunately, I often feel alone despite standing in a crowd.
Reason 4: Playing Ground
Everyone have something they are good at. Their niche, expertise, and skills. But sometimes, we want to try doing things, even if we are not good at it. I write for a living – and consider myself quite decent on it – , but blogging would be more on writing about living. This will be where I share my first experiences on new adventures, even if I’m lousy at it.
Now…does this mean I won’t need to use the other platforms? Absolutely not. The blog will probably last as long as I live, since once I die, no one will be maintaining it or paying its hosting, thus it will fade away. Whereas in the other free platforms, they’d probably last longer than my life, hence whatever I shared there can be beneficial to others after me (provided the platform don’t remove the posts).
Do I intend to monetize the blog? I don’t have an answer to that yet. It would be nice if the blog is self-sustainable, and I’ll look into either having non-intrusive ads to run on the blog, or affiliation links on products I’ll write about (ethically), but at the moment, I just want to enjoy the experience of writing on it.
I want to conclude that, while the ones in my portfolio will be written for their intended target audience, the blog will be more on seeking the similarly-minded. I wouldn’t worry much about writing complex words; it is intended to help de-clutter the mind.
Here’s to a fruitful journey documented through blogging.
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