The earliest blog post I can find is a public Christmas message from 15 December 2000 and the first discussing my professional interests is from 17 February 2002 titled The importance of experience. On Monday I finished converting blog posts into Markdown format, well under the end of April date I committed to in The big cleanup.1 I began to see enough patterns that I recognised some reflection was in order.
Learnings from the process of conversion
- Spelling—My spelling was poorer than I thought. Earlier entries were obviously written without the benefits of the live spell checking I’m used to now. Overall all, misspelled words were a very small percentage of the total words written and did tend to be the same words.
- Broken links—I checked most links as I went and found many that pointed to pages no longer in existence. Most were in the category of blogs and blog posts that have either disappeared or moved to different platforms with a new link structure (like my own).The other category was that of defunct companies or products. When I easily found the contents somewhere else I relinked; otherwise I removed the link. If I know it doesn’t exist, why leave the temptation to click.
- HTTP → HTTPS—An artefact of the change a few years ago where browsers started protecting us against website URLs that didn’t begin with
https. The change does two things. It means data sent between me and the target site is encrypted in transit and validates the site being served is the one I want. It does not mean that site is at all safe for me to visit. - Disappearances—Many products have disappeared completely and led to me deleting some posts that were clearly useless in today’s world.
- A new view on privacy—In Sharing birthdays wasn’t ok I comment that sharing birthdays is no longer the good idea we once thought it was. Posts which contained private information are not shared and have been moved to my journal. Some remained with details changed. Readers will see “my wife” but the link points to the non-public page for my wife. The post where I list 100 things about me is very much no longer public.
- Historical remnants—Related to both disappearances and privacy are posts from the early years commenting on technologies that have been superseded. In Music that moves you I suggest creating a CD of mood music so that I always have it with me. Streaming wasn’t a thing in 2004.
- Continued connections—The early days of blogging connected people and I have many contacts remaining from those days. Terry Frazier, Alexander Johannesen and Matt Mower.
- Linking is easier—The ability to use the
[[ ]]wikilink syntax to create links between posts is a godsend for speed and accuracy. - A gift from my past self—I am Grateful that my past self created a knowledge gift for its Future self. I have enjoyed reconnecting with who I was and at a very deep level still am.
Learnings from the writing itself
I keep coming back to blogging
I’ve had four main periods of blogging.
Although not blogging as it came to be known, the first began when my wife and I were living in London in 1999–2000. Our little website was a way to post photos and news of what we were up to. Blogging proper ran from 2002 to 2006,2 very intermittently from 2009 to 2012, and more regularly from 2021 onwards.
- 2002–2006—Categorised by an initial focus on focus on Knowledge management that moved quickly to Personal knowledge management as I began to develop the systems and habits of work that still serve me today. It is also the period where I made the personal connections listed above. Posts were a mix of ideas and what I might now class as “reacts” to other people’s posts.
- 2009–2012—In this period I started to move outwards, writing not so much reflections for myself as notes for others. I could have drawn from many workplace situations, but in employment it’s difficult to comment on co-workers who would know you are speaking of them, however enlightening the lesson might be.
- 2021 onwards—The period of the Digital garden. I’ve perfected my workflow and presentation though I have not yet perfected the focus of content.
Mixed perspectives
My posts fit into three main categories.
- The how-to post—where I explain something technical for the benefit of others. God knows I’ve learned so much myself that way.
- The new idea or observation post—where I share my thinking about something I’m learning or working through. The true essence of a Digital garden.
- The meta post—where I comment on blogging, note-taking, etc. Of the three classes of posts, I feel on review these are the least valuable to me when I re-read them. They tend to be fluff pieces without anything concrete. Something I might expect Artificial intelligence to write.
Broken promises
In my private journal and publicly, I make grand statements which I never follow through. My review of Today Matters has some good examples of what I mean. The key learning from reposting everything is that I need to explore this behaviour further and I have begun journalling to do so. Who am I making the Declarations for?
Some regret
The evening I processed Live an easier life and a few days later What can I do for you? I felt quite sad. The statement reflect a personal world focus I was deeply connected to and have since lost. I very much want to connect with that version of me, bolstered by 20 more years of life.
It’s all about growth
The exercise of reposting my blog posts has shown me what growth in myself really means. The world and I have moved on significantly across a quarter of a century, yet—and core to my identity—I’ve barely moved at all in some areas. What was important then remains important now.
It so happens that change in my job means I must focus on learning new ways to employ my Way of Being to my best advantage. I don’t think I’d have recognised that if it were not for this effort and I’m glad to be finishing this reflection in the moods of Gratitude and Wonder.
Footnotes
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I won’t get the “Atlas - Notes” folder done and I’m ok with that. I can incorporate notes from there fairly easily as I write new ones. ↩