Blogging and Gardening

Lots of discussions about social media going on lately. A failing of the tech industry that most people find it easiest to be on giant cruise ship. And then jump to another cruise ship once the buffet starts giving people food poisoning. Tech industry failed to make it easier for everyone to use sailboats. Ranting metaphor aside, I do think there’s a lot of value in owning your own space. At the very least own your own domain name and you can change boat from time to time. Some people do not know what to do with their own site even if they had one, so I want to talk about two “personal site” styles.

First is the classic blog. Blogs feel like modern social media, but way more chill. Slowed down communication. I love what blogging gives you the space to do. You get a chance to provide context to your readers AND yourself. Since it’s more of a “letter” format, you have more time to revise and tweak what you’ve written. Good writing happens in revisions. There’s no rush. But compared to the other style I am going to talk about, blogging tends to be more “in the moment”. This has good points and bad points. Blog posts are often a form of public journaling¹. A snapshot into your life and how you perceive things at the time. But you change over time. You learn new things. You expand your world view. Sometimes your beliefs can change drastically or they become more clear. And the way you expressed it in the past no longer matches the you of today. This could be uncomfortable, but you may also enjoy seeing that growth.

Another style of personal sites is the Digital Garden. Sometimes called a second brain or a wiki-style site. There’s a lot of space for creativity in the website itself. For the content, rather than the “letter” format, you may be keeping your notes, recipes, etc publically online. You just come back and refine those ideas as you learn more about them or change your opinion about them. Blogging can still be done on a digital garden. Anything goes on your own website, but those using blog focused software might have a hard time organizing all the other pages nicely. I think the first person I saw creating a digital garden style website was Devine. Another great example is Maggie’s site. As Maggie refines her ideas each page has a little plant icon to communicate with the reader how fresh of an idea it is. How indepth she feels she’s grown in this topic. It’s lovely. Compared to a blog post though, you expect the pages to be updated over time. You come back and edit things as you learn more or you change your opinion. It’s more of a living online notebook than a diary.

I am somewhere in the middle on which format to use. I write blog posts because it’s a way to write home that I am alive and kicking. But I also maintain a notes section that I do not have on the RSS feed (or at least it shouldn’t be). I lean more towards my blog because I am bad at reviewing my own notes. I write things down in hopes that the act of writing it down will make it stick. I do not spend a whole lot of time refining my notes. When it comes to the social aspects of the website, I do not know how much Devine or Maggie get emails about specific pages on their site, but blogs with newsletter/RSS feeds can prompt people to interact. Send an email, leave a comment, etc. I have the impression that the digital garden method of maintaining pages might result in less social connection with what you’re sharing. I would love to hear others experience with this. I very much enjoy all the interactions I’ve had because of my blog.

Is there another style that you like or admire from someone else?