Re: The Personality of a Personal Website

This morning, I read Manu’s The personality of a personal website, where Manu asks the question, which version of you does your personal site represent?

That quote really hit home for me.

One of the things I’ve struggled with is realizing that I have different parts and they show up at different times depending on the situation or my desires. For example: there is a hyper-focused, organized version of myself that appears when I need to get something done. There’s an almost Dude-like version of myself that shows up when I want to relax and find myself taking the world too seriously. There is even a version of me who wants to own nothing and make everything as easy as possible when I feel overwhelmed.

Manu goes onto say

I’ve struggled with managing these different parts, because in my mind it was weird. I needed to pick one and allow that to be me. Not just on my blog, but in my real life too. I believe this mentality originated from my father who shamed me for having too many interests or hobbies. I cannot begin to count how many times I’ve heard “Oh… is that what you are in now?” said with a side of scorn. Of course, what he never realized is I’m just like him. He has a dozen different hobbies/interests he rotates around to as well, just mine are very different from his. Mine involves reading, writing, and gaming while his involve working on RVs/motorcycles, guns, and YouTube.

When I find my “me” shifting, I feel shame and that has led to me closing out/ending dozens of blogs. I don’t feel like this version of Brandon necessarily meshes with that version of Brandon, or the version of Brandon that seems to be showing up right now, so my posts become disjointed, and I feel like it’s time to close out the blog or split my writing in different places. This is so common, just last week, I set up a new blog to write just about fitness because I felt like it didn’t have a home here.

I realize these thoughts and concerns are just my own and are a bit ridiculous. I mean, I follow a ton of folks in the tech field and when they post about something I’m not interested in (say coding) I just skim it or don’t open that post in my RSS. That’s what is great about the internet, you have a choice of the content you consume. There is no rule to say what I can and cannot post, it’s up to me to decide which version of myself I allow to come out on this blog.

I realize that the main issue here is that I need to be more comfortable and patient with myself. I also need to share whatever I want, because at the end of this day, it’s my personal site. I’m not selling an image on here. I don’t have a brand, classes, e-books nor am I asking for money. Heck, I’m barely trying to entertain. Instead, this site exists as both a source of entertainment for myself, as well as a public journal, where I can explore my thoughts and emotions, and if I’m lucky, help someone else out in the process.

(This post was written by the insightful version of Brandon who loves blogging and the blogging community.)