How I use my Bullet Journal — a great practical guide to using a bullet journal.

#InterestingReads #BulletJournal

An idea: instead of just keeping old blog posts lying around, why not print them and turn them into a self published book? Then you can store them in a bookshelf at home.

This idea was somewhat inspired by this post by Kin Lane.

#Blogging

God never gives you a dream that matches your budget. He's not checking your bank account, he's checking your faith. ~ Mark Walhberg

#Quotes #Spirituality

Selective Ignorance is when you pick and choose what you want to focus on or what you want to learn, instead of taking in everything that's available out there. You want to consider doing this, because we don't have time to learn everything. So, you have to be selective. It is as Ness says, a form of intentional knowledge.

Source: Selective ignorance: cultivating intentional knowledge in a chaotic world

^ This is also a great way to help avoid information overload.

#AvoidingInformationOverload #DigitalMinimalism

One of the best things I've learned a few years ago: I don’t need to have an opinion on everything. There are things that are beyond my control and it’s pointless to wallow in them. Having an opinion on everything is like paying attention to something that didn’t ask for your attention.

Source: https://www.instagram.com/p/CRFQkXanEd5/?utmmedium=copylink

#DigitalMinimalism

https://john.do/today/ — seems to be was good advice for starting/restarting a blog. Unfortunately navigating to that page seems to elicit some warnings on the browser, so browse at your own risk.

Anyway, my takeaway from this was: Writing is all about putting down your imperfect thoughts and ideas into paper. This allows you to reflect on your thoughts and ideas, and then go from there.

#Blogging #Writing

Series: #JournalEntry Tags: #InterestingReads #BulletJournal #Blogging #Quotes #Spirituality #AvoidingInformationOverload #DigitalMinimalism #Writing

Creating habits: how long does it take to form a habit? — the title pretty much explains what this article is about.

So, how long does it take to form a new habit? Apparently, it takes an average of around 66 days, or 2 months, to form a new habit. That is way longer than what is normally mentioned in articles or magazines I’ve read. That means if you want to build a habit of doing pull-ups right after waking up, you need to consistently do it for 2 months straight.

After reading this essay, Peter Thiel's Religion, and finding out about the idea of mimetic theory, of us imitating others, my mind was opened up. I'm starting to see it around me. Most of everything we do is imitation. I don't quite know yet what to do with this new found information, but I'm excited to find out more about it.

Blogging and Digital Gardens

A digital garden is where you go to think. And once you've sorted through your thoughts and ideas, you go to your blog to write it all down, then share it to the rest of the world.

Splitting one big blog/website into smaller more focused blogs/websites, is you, the author, shifting the responsibility of categorizing/filtering content away from the reader. Instead of the reader having to deal with figuring out how to only subscribe to content on your website that they like, you break it up for them so it is easier for them to pick and choose what to follow or subscribe to. It might not be the most efficient use of your resources or your time, but it is more respectful of the readers time.

The more I work on my digital garden, the more I become convinced that my Digital Garden as it is in Obsidian, does not need to be shared online. What needs to be shared is the content, which already makes its way into my posts on my various blogs/websites.

Nutrition

Always wondered why most recommendations for eating chicken is to eat one that doesn't have skin on it. Well now I know. That's because chicken skin has high amounts of saturated fat.

Why does that matter? It matters because saturated fat can increase your LDL (bad cholesterol). So, if you are trying to keep your cholesterol in check, take off the chicken skin before eating it.

Spirituality

Heard these lyrics in a song:

Show me all your scars and I'll show you the cross.

Yeah, we all have our scars, we all go through our own suffering. But take a look at what Jesus, the son of God, endured on the cross for you and me. Let that put your scars and suffering into perspective.

You cannot change God no matter how hard you pray. God will do what He wants because He is God and you are not. The key though is that He always wants what's best for you. So even if He does whatever He wants, it's always taking into account what's best for you.

^ Thought inspired by one of Bishop Barron's Daily Gospel Reflection.

Misc

Found this pretty cool and free Anime Avatar Maker.

Writing is addictive to me because just like woodworking, we are creating something tangible that can be shared with other people.

The same feeling or motivation that drives secular people to share their causes online, is the same feeling or motivation that drives religious people to share the Gospel. Its finding something that you are so invested in emotionally, that you cannot help but share it with other people.

This applies to anything that hits you on an emotional level. If it made you feel something, you will more than likely want to share it with others.

Tags: #JournalEntry #Bookmarks #BuildingHabits #MimeticTheory #Blogging #DigitalGarden #Reflection #Nutrition #Spirituality #Christianity #Writing

Personal Publishing Principles — this is a great read for someone interested in creating/maintaining a personal website or a personal blog.

One good tip that was shared in that post is that a personal website/blog is the perfect place for you to experiment with your own ideas. Not everything will work out of course, but keep trying and some will.

This also tells me that if your personal website won't allow you to do that, then you probably have a professional website as opposed to a personal one.

‘Pics or it didn’t happen’ – the mantra of the Instagram era — extremely good read on the use of social media, and how it changes the way we think and go about our daily lives.

One of the problems with social media that is highlighted in this essay, is that while social media gives everyone a voice, everyone on social media is also speaking at the same time. This means that if you want to be heard, you will want to speak louder, and you'll want to do so more often than everybody else. If you don't, you risk becoming somebody who shouts into the void with nobody even glancing your way.

So you can see how this can make people addicted to constantly posting photos, status, updates, etc... Each post becoming grander and grander just so you can get more eyeballs and hopefully likes/comments on it.

Christianity

From Mk 10:46-52:

As Jesus was leaving Jericho with his disciples and a sizable crowd, Bartimaeus, a blind man, the son of Timaeus, sat by the roadside begging.

On hearing that it was Jesus of Nazareth, he began to cry out and say, “Jesus, son of David, have pity on me.” And many rebuked him, telling him to be silent. But he kept calling out all the more, “Son of David, have pity on me.”

Jesus stopped and said, “Call him.” So they called the blind man, saying to him, “Take courage; get up, Jesus is calling you.” He threw aside his cloak, sprang up, and came to Jesus.

Jesus said to him in reply, “What do you want me to do for you?” The blind man replied to him, “Master, I want to see.” Jesus told him, ‘Go your way; your faith has saved you.” Immediately he received his sight and followed him on the way.

This gospel passage is a great example of being persistent with your prayers. Bartimaeus kept calling out to Jesus even as he was getting reprimanded by the people around him. He was being told to shut up, but he kept calling out anyway. And eventually Jesus answered his call. The lesson here is to be persistent with your prayers.

You could argue that he kept on calling because he was blind and desperate. True, that seems to be a valid point. But then, why wait till you're blind and desperate before you persevere in your prayers? I feel like you open yourself up to more gifts and blessings from the Lord, if you don't wait till you're blind and desperate.

When Jesus says,

“Whoever comes to me and does not hate Father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and even life itself, cannot be my disciple.”

... what He means is that any of those cannot be loved more than God himself. To be a disciple means to put everything else second to the love of God.

Source: Bishop Barron, Word on Fire Bible Volume I, p386

There is a beautiful comment on this Youtube video from Christian Gospel that goes like this:

GOD is like oxygen. You can't see HIM, but you can't live without Him! The GOD that fought with David is the same GOD that will fight with you & for you! Your next chapter will be amazing. GOD is changing your storyline to happy & healed!💕❤🙏🙌

“GOD is like oxygen. You can't see HIM, but you can't live without Him!” Love that analogy!

Reflections

One of the great things about social media is that it made it really easy to give everyone a voice (see interesting read above). The problem is, it comes with a price. You pay for it with your data and attention.

People who weren't on social media before, didn't have the urges to post photos or post status updates. It makes me think that this is something that has turned into a habit over time. And since it's become a habit for most people, it is hard to stop.

Writing for yourself is writing to a private diary or journal. Writing to an audience is when your writing is shared to the public.

Quotes

What is weird? Someone who is different? Or someone who is different than you? ~ Sensei Wu, Ninjago

Ninjago is easily becoming my favorite kids TV show. It is filled with insightful quotes like this one. Sometimes I feel like they made the show for adults, just as much as they made it for kids.

“Children are perhaps the most unmistakable evidence of goodness in a world so bogged down by suffering and anger.” ~ Jared Zimmerer, Senior Director of the Word on Fire Institute

Parenting

Is the internet hurting the youth? — Gary Vee — seems like excellent advice on how to handle kids and their use of the internet.

For those who don't want to click the link because they're allergic to Instagram or Reels, the advice is this: Build your kid's self-esteem first before letting them loose on the internet.

Tags: #JournalEntry #Bookmarks #Blogging #SocialMedia #Christianity #Spirituality #Reflections #Writing #Parenting

Don't force yourself to blog when you don't want to.

This is a rule or tip I've seen from other bloggers in the past. But I didn't really internalize it, until I made blogging less of a priority in my life.

I always had something to say. In fact, I kept writing down thoughts and ideas into my journal, so that I would always have something to say. But soon enough it became like work to me. More of a chore instead of a fun hobby.

Nowadays, I'm finding that it's okay to not have anything to blog or write about. It's okay to not want to do any blogging or writing whatsoever. It's okay to... gasp ...want to do something else.

Write, when you have something to say. Take the time to do something else, when you don't.

Keep it fun or you'll risk burning out.

Tags: #Reflection #Blogging #Writing

It's a work in progress, so there will be changes. In fact, the nature of it means it will probably be forever under construction. When you go through it, don't think of it as a blog. It is not. There are no published dates. There's no RSS feed. There's no email subscription. The URLs to specific notes will probably change every week. It is really a digital garden/personal knowledge-base.

Matt shared this wonderful website on Mastodon. What an amazing find! It allows you to watch, what looks like dashcam videos, from all over the world. In an age where travel and road trips are put on-hold, this website lets you experience virtually driving in another country. It's a mesmerizing and very interesting way to see what other countries/cities look like.

Power outages and water shut-offs all across Texas. People have died in accidents on the road and at their own homes because of the cold. It's extremely disheartening. We've been extremely lucky to not have lost power or water at all. But that wasn't the case for everyone else. Last week's winter storm really showed how the state of Texas is just not ready for this kind of weather. I'm hoping that the state can learn from this and be better prepared for the next one.

I finished reading How to Take Smart Notes – One Simple Technique to Boost Writing, Learning and Thinking by Sönke Ahrens last week. Here are the last set of my literature notes for it:

It is not possible to think through things deeply, without writing down your thoughts. — page 95

Connecting thoughts and ideas to other thoughts and ideas can help us remember them in the future. Again this is what the Zettelkasten forces you to do. Which is why it can be considered a tool for thinking and learning. — Page 103

Ahrens says to add links to other notes, or links on other notes to your new notes when adding a permanent note to the slip-box. I guess this means you can edit existing notes to add links to new notes. — Page 107

Great ideas develop over time. They don’t all of a sudden materialize inside our heads. We would have to have been thinking about a problem and been trying to solve it for a good amount of time, before a good idea dawns on us. — Page 121

When writing down permanent notes, don’t forget to ask questions. Try to see what’s not there, what’s not covered. — Page 126-127

The fewer choices you have, the less decisions you have to make, the less mental resources you have to consume to make a decision. — Page 130

One way to enforce one idea per note is to make sure the contents of a note fit on a screen without having to scroll. — Page 130

When writing, keep a second document open where you can put text that you’ve cut out of the draft you are working on. This allows you to come back to them later if you need to use them. At the same time, it allows you to continue working on your draft without worrying about the parts you cut out because they didn’t have any function in the draft. — Page 145

One thing people don't seem to mention about trying to build a digital garden — it is a tough mental workout. A lot of the things you do as part of it, elaborating and writing notes in your own words, then connecting them to other permanent notes, requires a lot of thinking. And yes, that's the point of the Zettelkasten, to make you think and consequently learn and possibly gain new insight and ideas. But I'm just pointing out, that doing so requires a lot of mental stamina. And when you do it at the end of a long work day, when your brain is already fried, it's tough.

I believe in the end it is still worth it though.

I'm thinking of creating a new blog (yet again) just for sharing photos. Like an Instagram replacement, but as a personal blog. I want to keep Above the Earth and Seas as just a photo-blog for sky photos in the future.

I would have just gone with Instagram for this, but they made some changes that really annoy me. In the past, I could block all notifications on the app. But now, they've added notifications for people or accounts to follow. And I cannot seem to find a way to block those notifications. It is annoying and I don't want to deal with it. There's also the likes/hearts component of it that messes with my head. That said I still use Instagram to find great content that can only be found there. I just don't want to use it to post new photos.

Yes I know. I keep telling myself I need to cut down on the number of websites I have to maintain, but I also keep wanting to try out new ones. I've been trying to find a replacement for Instagram for some time now. And knowing myself, my brain won't shut up about it unless I try... something.

A personal blog can be thought of as another form of a notebook or paper to write on. It allows you to dump down your thoughts, so you can think through them.

Faith is an attitude of trust in the presence of God. Faith is openness to what God will reveal, do, and invite. It should be obvious that in dealing with the infinite and all-powerful personal God, we are never in control.

This is why we say that faith goes beyond reason. If we can figure it out, calculate precisely, predict with complete accuracy, we’re in charge—and by definition, we are not dealing with a person. Would you use any of those descriptors in talking about your relationship with your husband, wife, or best friend? Instead, you enter into an ever-increasing rapport of trust with such people.

One of the most fundamental statements of faith is this: your life is not about you. You’re not in control. This is not your project. Rather, you are part of God’s great design. To believe this in your bones and to act accordingly is to have faith.

~ Daily Gospel Reflection by Bishop Barron

A great definition of faith.

“When you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, who love to stand and pray in the synagogues and on street corners so that others may see them. Amen, I say to you, they have received their reward. But when you pray, go to your inner room, close the door, and pray to your Father in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will repay you.”

~ From Matthew, Chapter 6

I have always wondered about this in regards to praying before eating meals in public, like at a restaurant. Yes I know we should give praise to God for the blessing of having food to eat. But shouldn't we do it in a way that doesn't draw attention in public? Because otherwise, are we not like the hyprocrites, “who love to stand and pray in the synagogues and on street corners so that others may see them”?

Fasting is normally associated with food. But I think it can be applied to digital activities. In which case, isn't digital minimalism just another form of fasting?

Finished watching Spenser Confidential. It was a great movie. Hilarious at times and action packed. Love that a lot of the fight scenes were hand-to-hand combat. Looking forward to the sequel, if they ever come out with one.

Warning to the parents out there. It is a rated R movie, so definitely be wary when watching around kids.

Listening to a My Chemical Romance track and still loving it after all these years. I'm reminded of the time back in 2005-2006, when I was on an mIRC channel chatting with some friends. You know how you could share what song you're listening to in the public chat? Yeah we used to do it then. Someone on the channel noticed what I was listening to and told me to check out My Chemical Romance.

Man, that guy changed my life as far as my musical tastes go. I didn't even know that guy personally. He was just another regular on that channel. I'm so grateful that he took the time to tell me about an emo rock band back then. I wonder where he is right now? I hope he is doing well and still rocking out to My Chemical Romance.

Caleb is now getting better at walking by himself around the house. He's growing up too fast! It happened exactly like what was said in this post. Our baby/infant is gone. He's now a toddler.

When your child says, “Dad look at this”, what they really want is for you to notice them.

Source: https://www.instagram.com/p/CLc_d8wpSD9/

I'm finding that Instagram can be a surprisingly good place to find parenting advice.

I'll end this post with a photo of what dad life looked like last week.

Yup, that's Caleb standing and playing by himself. Like I said earlier in this post, no longer a baby. Now a toddler.

Tags: #Weeknotes #Blogging #DigitalGarden #Music #Parenthood #Parenting #Spirituality #Writing #Zettelkasten

Got a TWSBI Eco-T fountain pen as a Christmas gift. I've been using it last week and I'm still not a big fan of it. But I also can't seem to stop myself from using it. There's something fascinating about a fountain pen that makes me want to write with one.

I think my Zebra Sarasa Grand Gel Pen writes better. But I need more time with the TWSBI Eco-T fountain pen before I make a final judgement.

For my Zettelkasten in Obsidian, I decided to no longer keep links between my Daily Notes and my Permanent Notes. This is based off what I read in Ahrens' book saying to discard or archive Fleeting Notes. And that's pretty much what my Daily Notes are, a collection of Fleeting Notes.

I'm removing the links, but I'm still archiving them though. And that's because I use the Daily Notes to create my Weeknotes post. It also makes those notes searchable via Obsidian.

Ran into an interesting discussion on micro.blog last week about RSS Feeds vs Email Newsletters. Someone made a good point that non-techy people already know how to handle emails. But those same people most likely won't know what is, or how to use an RSS Feed reader. This is probably the best reason to offer email subscriptions, even if you're not into monetizing your blog.

A writing tip I found online is to write to a specific person. In my case, I should imagine that I'm writing directly to one of my kids.

Distractions stop you from achieving greatness.

Received a Fitbit Inspire 2 as a Christmas gift. Here are some quick notes on it compared to my old Fitbit Charge 2:

• It is so lightweight compared to the Charge 2. I sometimes totally forget that I'm wearing it.
• The battery life is so good. I've been using it for over a week now and I still have 57% battery left.

We had a quiet New Year's Day celebration with the family. It was Caleb's first New Year's Day celebration with us. He celebrated by walking around the house multiple times. Assisted walking of course. He can't walk by himself just yet.

Was trying to get sleep, but was getting annoyed at my kids who were playing on the bed.

One thing I learned from The Last Dance documentary is to always turn a negative into a positive. It is similar to the perspective change shared by James Clear. And that led me to this:

I am grateful that I have kids who bother me when I'm trying to sleep. It means I've been blessed with playful kids.

Content moved to... While working on a Blazor WASM project last week...

Been playing MyTeam mode in NBA 2K21 lately. I'm finding that the Flip Push freelance set is great for a team with a good point guard like Chris Paul.

Michael Jordan on being true to yourself :

It's never gonna be enough for everybody. I know that, I realize that, cause everybody has a preconceived idea in terms of what they think I should do or what I shouldn't do. The way that I go about my life is that I set examples. And if it inspires you, great. You know, I will continue to do that. If it doesn’t, then maybe I’m not the person that you should be following.”

~ Michael Jordan, The Last Dance

Finished The Last Dance documentary last week. Wonderful documentary. A must watch for any basketball fan.

The Dallas Mavericks get blown out by the Charlotte Hornets after their huge win against the LA Clippers. Every time I watch them play, they lose. I'm cursed.

I also watched their game last night against a depleted Chicago Bulls lineup — and they lost as well. Arrrgh.

Content moved to... WriteFreely Archive Page Generator

To say that Mary is the Mother of God is to insist on the density of the claim that God truly became human. As Fulton J. Sheen commented, Mary is like the moon, for her light is always the reflection of a higher light.

A wonderful analogy from Fulton Sheen.

Catholic theology has drawn a further implication from Mary’s status as Mother of God—her role as Mother of the Church. If she is the one through whom Christ was born, and if the Church is indeed Christ’s Mystical Body, then she must be, in a very real sense, the Mother of the Church. She is the one through whom Jesus continues to be born in the hearts of those who believe. This is not to confuse her with the Savior, but it is to insist on her mission as mediator and intercessor.

~ Daily Gospel Reflection by Bishop Barron

Emphasis on “not to confuse her with the Savior, but it is to insist on her mission as mediator and intercessor”.

Catholics are known for not really reading the Bible that much. In yesterday's homily, Fr. Kevin Wilwert shared some good books (the Bible is a collection of books) to get started when reading the Bible for the first time.

• Psalms
• Gospel of Mark
• Letter to the Romans

I'll end this post with what is quickly becoming one of my favorite Bible passages:

Come to me, all you that are weary and carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”

~ Matthew 11:28-30

The part where Jesus says, “Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me;” brings me back to my previous post. Like I said in that post, not all the problems of today need to be solved with something new. Sometimes, all we need to do is to look to the past to find the answers.

Tags: #Weeknotes #Basketball #Blogging #Fitbit #FountainPen #NBA2K21 #Spirituality #Writing #Zettelkasten

2) Writing wasn't fun anymore

When I would write a blog post, I would always start with a blank page and a massive backlog of ideas. The act of writing a well-formatted blog post is intimidating. That is the part I don't enjoy.

I realized I was overthinking it. The things I write about are straightforward and often very technical. They're more for me than anyone else. Writing helps me think and understand so I decided to embrace this and change the way I write.

Instead of writing long, formal blog posts for others, I now write smaller (usually) brief notes about a specific topic to build up my own personal knowledge.

This collection of notes can then be used to Learn in public, sometimes referred to as a Digital Garden.

Link: How and why this site exists – Eric Gregorich

Sad to say, but I'm at this point right now. Just the thought of writing a decent blog post somehow renders me exhausted. Not to mention, my mind has been stuck on the idea of, not everything has to be shared online. It's perfectly okay to go through life, to let things happen to you and not have to share it online.

Writing this post took a good bit of effort on my part. I had to make sure to finish it in one sitting, otherwise it would have gone unpublished for sure. Needless to say, I've all but given up on the 100DaysToOffload challenge. I got to 76 posts. That's as far as I could go.

Lately, I've been spending time writing code, instead of writing entries on here. At this point in time, I find more satisfaction in producing a working application, as opposed to a new blog post or journal entry. It's not that I don't have anything to write about — my bullet journal is filled with topics to write about. But lately, I just don't feel like I'm publishing something of value on here. I guess I also finally got tired of writing journal entries.

One of the reasons for that is this slog of writing one post after another, but never being able to connect them into a more cohesive idea or insight. There's also this constant battle going on in my mind, between writing for myself and the readers. I like to think that I'm writing for myself. But as soon as I hit publish, that post goes out into the world to be read by anyone. So, am I really writing for myself? I don't know. So, when I ran into this idea of a digital garden, it got me thinking. Was a digital garden what I wanted to build in the first place?

It kinda fits with one of the reasons why I started this journal. It is a place for me to share thoughts and ideas — that I think are good thoughts and ideas — from my bullet journal. What I seem to be missing, is a way to connect those thoughts and ideas, and to build them up into a useful insight for myself. Sure, I can organize posts using tags. But that only helps me find other posts with the same tag. I've never been able to say, build a knowledge-base out of all of them.

So, a digital garden would help keep the focus on writing for myself. Not to mention, it is a better fit for storing the thoughts and ideas that I've written down on my bullet journal. It will have notes, thoughts, ideas, that are meant to be read by me. They just happen to be available online, or not. From what I understand, it doesn't even have to be shared online.

So, this is where I'm at right now. I'll start looking into how to build a digital garden in the next few days. I'm not sure if this new direction will pan out, but I'm honestly excited to dig into it. I hope this post finds you well. I'll catch y'all later.

Related Links: A gardening guide for your mind Welcome to my digital garden

Tags: #Bookmarks #Blogging #DigitalGarden #Reflection #Writing

I’m talking about even those moments when inspiration strikes. You have a “brilliant” thought and you sit down to write but what comes out is banality. Your sentences don’t flow and your words can hardly express what’s really in your head. It all feels like a farce. – From The thing about writing by Rebecca Toh

Yep, that's me. That's why I can't rush my writing. When I do, it always ends up as crap. The best advice I've seen on writing was a post here on Read.Write.As, about waiting a day or two before hitting the Publish button. Allow yourself some time to sort through the jumble of words coming from your head.

But writing is also my vice. It is an obsession, all consuming, something that I can't stop thinking about even when doing other things. It is a habit I cannot shake, one that I must live with, am more than willing to do so.

Because I still want all of this to mean something. – From Colin Walker

Isn't that what we all want in the end? For all of this to mean something? So true.

Tags: #Bookmarks #Writing

As a related update to the results from Experiment Log – 001, I found that the number of readers did not increase in the 2nd half of that experiment. It stayed low when my posts were not being listed in the Read.Write.As feed. As I stated in the results for that experiment though, I no longer care about that.

I no longer care about that, because some of the people who are meant to read this online journal, can't even read yet. I'm talking about my 3 year old son, and the second one that is coming next year.

Some people have mentioned that blogging these days sometimes feels like writing into the void. I can tell you that is not true. The fact that I know people have mentioned it, means that I read their posts. There's not much interaction with posts, because there's no comments system yet. But people are reading your posts, especially if your posts show up on the Read.Write.As feed. That I think is one of the benefits of this “writing” platform.

So what now?

After I publish this post, I'm disabling the ability to view my site's stats again. In my case, it does more harm than good, so I'll keep it disabled. As a compromise, if I really want to, I'll allow myself to enable it maybe just once or twice a year.

Have a good evening everyone!

Tags: #ExperimentLog #ExperimentLogResults #Writing #Blogging

I want to see if not publishing to the Read Write.As feed will decrease the number of people reading my posts.

So this was interesting because during the start of this experiment, I still had access to my site's stats. However, a little over a week after starting this experiment, I started Experiment Log – 003, which basically hid my site's stats.

So during the start of this experiment, while I could check my site's stats, I did notice that the number of readers did drop. It was somewhat offset by another blogger referencing my posts, but overall the number of readers/hits did drop noticeably. This points to how helpful the Read.Write.As feed was to getting eyeballs on my posts. It also indicates that other readers are perfectly fine with following my posts via email subscriptions or through their feed readers.

Since I currently have the link to my site's stats disabled, I cannot check to see if the number of readers increased or decreased during the 2nd half of this experiment. I'll give an update on that once I conclude Experiment Log – 003 later in the month.

And if so, does it bother me? Do I even care? Should I even care?

Did it bother me that the number of readers dropped? – During the first week of the experiment, yes, it did bother me. Interestingly, once I disabled the link to my site's stats for another experiment, it started to bother me less and less.

At the moment, it no longer bothers me, especially since I do not know if the number of readers increased or decreased during the experiment. It looks like the ability to check my site's stats directly influences whether or not I am affected by the number of readers I get.

Honestly, I am a little scared about checking my site's stats in the future because I fear it might bother me again.

Do I even care? – I no longer care.

Should I even care? – No.

I want to see if it changes how I write my posts, knowing that my posts will no longer show up on a feed.

It did change how I wrote my posts. Knowing that my posts wouldn't show up on the feed anymore was honestly, liberating. It was like a huge burden was lifted off my shoulders. I no longer needed to please people with my writing. I could just write for myself.

The decreased exposure also made for a peaceful environment for writing, knowing that less people could get offended with what I wrote. Not that I aim to offend people with my writing.

Another thing I learned is that it is almost impossible to separate writing for myself and writing to an audience when posting on a public website. It is just something that I will have to learn how to deal with.

Specifically I want to see if I'm writing to an audience, or if I'm purely writing for myself.

I was writing to an audience. More specifically, it was like I was writing to please other people versus just writing for myself. It's one of the best things that this experiment has shown me.

So what now?

With everything I've learned from this experiment, I have decided to allow my posts to show up on the Read.Write.As feed once again. The reason is simple, it is possible that I will write something that is exactly what somebody else needed to read at that point in their lives. Having my posts show up on a feed increases the chance that my post could be helpful to somebody else.

I liken it to the way that I found this post that helped me battle my smartphone addiction. If the author never bothered to share it to a community of readers, I most likely will never have found it. And I most likely would still be addicted to my smartphone.

Another reason is that if I ever hope to replace my social media with this online journal of mine, then it would be helpful to be able to post to a feed. Also, if I am to have any chance of convincing other people to do the same, then they need to see that it can be done. Or at least, be able to see what it looks like when someone is attempting it.

So after publishing this post, I'm turning my site's publicity to public once again. The challenge for me then is to stay focused on writing for myself, even when my posts now show up on a feed once again.

Tags: #ExperimentLog #ExperimentLogResults #Writing #Blogging