One Hundred And One Blog Posts in One Hundred and One Days

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I have written at least one hundred and one blog posts in one hundred and one days. During this time most blogs have gone by unread. Blogging could be seen as futile but it isn’t. Having the discipline to write every single day, despite having no inspiration is good. It forces us to stop, think, and develop inexistent ideas.

In different times I would not write one hundred and one blog posts about nothing but we’re in a pandemic that is being ignored by the people with the power to get us out of it. This means fewer conferences, fewer meetings with people to do sports activities and more. It means less freedom to find covid safe work. It means living with the constant risk of getting long COVID. Switzerland is living in denial about the pandemic and this is frustrating.

The Swiss radio and television removed COVID from their news site. They don’t even keep it as a tribute to the last three years. For them the pandemic is over. You watch the news and you see no masks, no safety measures. Nothing.

Not Waiting For Inspiration

If I waited for inspiration then the blog would be dormant, as it has been for the last decade and a half. It would be updated when I do something out of the ordinary. It would be updated for an interesting bike ride or an interesting walk. It would document an interesting idea, or event. Instead it is about the thing that inspires me enough to write three hundred words

The Stereotypical Blog

Recently I was looking for books about blogging and they’re all about the same thing. Monetisation. They’re all about making money, rather than about exploring and developing ideas. They are all about financial gain rather than idea development. If I found a book about blogging to share ideas and experiences, rather than to make money, I would be tempted. A blog should be about sharing and developing ideas.

Blogging as an Investment

Social media today is about the ego of the people who own the companies. Twitter has become a chaotic mess that sold for 44 billion. Facebook is a social network that used to be about friends and friendships until Zynga ruined the experience for everyone. Instagram was great, until it was bought by Facebook and turned into a glossy mag that promotes influences, rather than human beings. Before you tell me off, I posted more than three thousand images over a period of years. I stopped using it because it made me feel lonely.

Blogging is a worthwhile social media replacement because we generate content for our own blog site. We practice writing, and if we get enough traffic then we can generate a small revenue. If we’re going to spend time on the world wide web then we might as well do something that benefits us personally. As I have said plenty of times, social networks forget that ROI should be about generating value for users, not just for corporate interests. Blogging does provide ROI for the user, me.

Social media was about community, but with time, and algorithms, community has been destroyed. It is now a shouting match. I like blogging. I try to write positive blog posts. It takes effort to be positive. The natural instinct is to write about what bothers me, rather than what I enjoy.

And Finally

Blogging is about taking half an hour to an hour and a half to think, and to develop the ideas I think about. It’s like going for a walk, where the steps are taken by my fingers. It’s a moment to turn inwards. I will continue this habit.