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I don’t know if I’m actually blogging right. Most of the time, I have so many ideas for a blog post, but they either get scrapped before being posted or just never get started on it. I’ve always talked about my opinions on something or had a detailed breakdown of a major event, but never a collection of short posts or frequent wrap ups. At one point, I almost thought I was doing things wrong because I wasn’t talking about my life outside of the internet or things that really affect it. To tell you the truth, I was scared that I would somehow be judged or burned for simple things that I didn’t think too much about at all when writing.

I’ve had a hedgehog complex (more accurately called, Hedgehog’s Dilemma) when it comes to the internet for a while now. I’m paranoid about being brutally honest about my feelings in such a public place yet I want people to know. But the way I want them to know is usually archaic or vague enough to not mean anything to anyone else. I want to reach other people, yet I’m afraid of being rejected or too loud so I keep a polite distance towards others. Even on my own sites, I can’t even bear my heart out enough to drop the persona or character I’ve made for the whole world to see. I can’t even admit that my life is interesting enough to write about.

Blogging is not just about an academic breakdown of whatever subject you’re interested in talking about, but just a way to talk about yourself in great detail. Yet I can’t even do that one simple thing. There’s this underlying expectation I had of myself to be professional, thoughtful and collected that no one asked for, but I still can’t let go of. I’m so used to an internet space where every single thing that you say is picked apart and dissected in great detail, that I don’t even know what to do with myself after finally escaping that life.

Sometimes I think about what my life was like before September 2023, where I was kept in a Social Media walled garden flip flopping communities to find a place to belong in. It felt like everytime I dug into something too deep or got attached, some sort of petty conflict would arise and burn all of it to the ground. I had to start all over again and find new people to connect with. I was in a multi-year situationship with the walled garden and had nowhere to go. I hated the cycle that I was in, yet I didn’t know how to escape it. It was only by sheer luck that I heard about Neocities in a random Wikia page and found a place I’ve never been before. It sounds silly now, but to me, the idea of being so unabashedly yourself online through a webspace you’ve made yourself was kinda revolutionary. In a way, it was exactly the escape I was looking for.

I still have yet to scrub off all the bad habits or scars I got from the life of the chronically online for so long. I still don’t understand how to be myself. I still feel like I have to live in a standard I put myself in. I still feel like I have to be right all the time, I have to be the “rational” one to have worth as a person. I had to take away the things I loved because it was “cringe” or “weird”. I had to keep everything to myself to survive. All the things that caused me shame from real life were now online. And now that I’m completely out of it all, the biggest question I had for myself for the last year is; What now? What do I do with all this?

I’ve been given the driver’s seat, but where do I even go? I can go wherever I want, but I’m still afraid I’ll make the wrong turn and get pelted by a bunch of eggs, no matter how unlikely that possibility may be. I need to plan everything in order to gauge a sense of control that I’ll probably never be able to have. Even now as I‘m writing this, I’m having second thoughts as to how honest or structured I should be. I’m even considering scrapping this altogether. Who am I even writing this for? The easy answer should be for me, but why? For what purpose will this thing I’m feeling serve anybody? I always feel like I have to justify my very existence to everyone around me, I forget to just live.

Blogging is one of the earnest, long-form looks into a person’s life and thoughts, but it takes a lot out of me to be genuine in a way that feels safe or interesting. I have to come up with new ways to write something that makes sense and is eloquently made, that blogging often starts to feel like a chore. I want to start being loose, writing more, but I need time to unpack everything in my life before getting to that point. There is no grand conclusion or main point that isn’t already summarized by the title, so I’ll end it here.