What This Website Is For, Embracing Being Unapologetically Me

I’ve long had a website just because I’m a programmer, but for a long while it has been left kind of desolate - so I’ve been thinking over why and if I should I keep it. And as I leaned more towards keeping it, what to do with it. Additionally, I might come back to this blog post to update it over time so consider it a bit of a living document (update notes will be at the bottom, when and if revisions are made).

Note: This post became kind of long so to help with reading attention I added a few photos from my Norway vacation trip that I had this summer 😅✨

I was initially inspired by the so called “small web” movement, where people have created communities around the old web as it used to feel like in the 90s and 2000s, and seeing people just playing around and enjoying the process of creating websites that are truly their own has been quite reinvigorating. So I thought I should have another look at my blog, with the express goal of just having fun with it.

Primarily in the way of creating small experiments that I can share as mini projects on here, so going forward I’ll be using this website as my playground to tinker just for fun or to explore a specific feature I’d like to make and see what I learn to perhaps apply somewhere else. Whether that be putting existing things together into something new, or having a moment of inspiration and creating something from scratch. This process could also spawn some dev-specific blog posts which live in its own dedicated section here (also found in the header menu under “Devlogs”).

I have also been journaling a lot lately and might end up sharing some of those thoughts on here as well when I feel it might be something I’d like to share. Perhaps even go through some old projects that are or have been dear to me for whatever reason(s), and write a post-mortem about them, no matter which state I might have left them in (finished but ultimately didn’t work out, kind of finished, to barely got off the starting phase).

But mainly I’d just like to unshackle myself from getting stuck, hesitant or even scared about what people might think when sharing, I usually get stuff done to like 80% - but then get these thoughts that no one will care and I just end up stopping right then and there. This “want” for external validation is something I struggle with constantly, many times I might even get it over the finish line, but eventually I take it offline again…

Other times it can also be getting to attached with perfectionism, where I keep reiterating on a specific thing endlessly - instead of being able to call something good enough and functional and moving on…

And these are things I want to work on going forward. To be able to do things for myself, and hopefully others might find joy in what I make, but if I can’t at least do it for my own fun in the first place - then why should I struggle to do it at all. And since I have been looking into making things like YouTube videos, I also have to try and and not focus so much on what others might think - and just be as genuine to myself as I can be, instead of trying to surpress myself to try and fit in with as many people as possible. Something I’ve done my whole life to try and fit in, partially because I’ve always felt different, and it’s only a couple of years ago now when I really locked in why as I got my diagnosis with Inattentive ADHD and Autism.

My way of thinking and acting simply isn’t what most people go through (that which is called “neuro-typical”), and in some ways my attempts to fit in and follow “scripts” for how things are supposed to work has held me back from just being me and doing what I think is a better way, at least for me. Sometimes those “scripts” have completely shut me off to various ideas and concepts, because the “normal” way to do things simply doesn’t work for me and my brain, it just doesn’t process and I can’t force my way through it.

Some things are just extremely hard, and takes a ton of mental energy to process and wade myself through. It feels impossible for me commit myself fully if there isn’t an underlying interest or some kind of external influence to help me along (such as a person near me doing the same or at least similar thing, positive affirmations or some eventual reward at the end of it).

So going forward, I will be unapologetically myself and try my outmost to not adapt in ways that isn’t genuine to myself and ultimately those around me. And I’m really going to try and not shut down early when creating things, instead actually following through with finishing them and sharing with the world. Or at least finish them enough to where I’ve “exorcised” the idea to its natural conclusion where it will no longer bother me, whether that might be finishing it to a point of good enough (instead of pushing for perfection) - and if it works out as is, nice! If it works out but could use iteration, i can iterate and perhaps even add new features. Or if it just reaches a point where I don’t find joy or some genuine use in it, allow myself to let it go instead of letting it eat at me.

Anything, anything but getting hung up somewhere in the middle, whether that is striving too hard for perfect so I just get mentally stuck because it feels like an impossible amount of time is required to finish, or just allowing myself to let them go if they ultimately aren’t worth it to pursue. To allow myself to be able to narrow things down.

I can’t do everything, despite the times where I really like an idea and the inspiration feels like its just pouring out of me. As much as I’d love to, especially with friends where we can really imagine some cool ideas to work on together. But ultimately, I have to choose and be mindful of what I sign up for, as I only have so much bandwidth and time. And I kind of just need to let some things go, to allow myself to say no, so I can have the chance to finish some of the ideas I choose to work on into something that can get finished. Finished, but that doesn’t have to be perfect. It doesn’t even have to be fully finished, I just have to feel like I fulfilled my effort into it.

And just be happy with “I made this”, and that I took it to the end of its road, and not get caught up in ways it could be better or be iterated on if I’ve decided I’m finished with it…

And whatever was created, will be a manifestation of where I was at during that point in time. I do try to learn and grow with everything as I move forward in life, so whatever I made a year ago might no longer be something I am attached to anymore. It might just be a part of my journey and a stepping stone that I had along the way.

I have made my fair share of mistakes, we all have, and the least we can do to our peers is hear them out and give everyone a fair chance. To allow a chance for people to grow, and not to hold past actions against them if they show growth for the better (with exception for the obvious culprits, like, genocide or murder…). The only way to grow is for lessons to be exposed and taken, not from intense reactions and instant hate towards something. The only thing that happens then is that the receiving persons might shut down, and perhaps even worse attach themselves to those ideas that caused the reaction, ideas that might be harmful or hateful. Which is perhaps one of the reasons we have such a polarized society today…

It’s honestly exhausting how extreme weaponized an opinion can be, and if people can’t deal in constructive criticisms but instead go straight for incessant screaming and personal attacks, they should take a hard look in the mirror. I think the world would honestly be a better place if people just evaluated what they were about to say against common logical fallacies, and perhaps came from a place of kindness.

The only way you learn is by failing and taking the lessons from those failures. So take that for what it is. The cancel culture I’ve observed, while I can definitely support the message - I’ve noticed that it can sometimes require some nuance, or altogether lack a huge amount of open mindedness, people seem to attach themselves vigorously to these ideas, so much so that it almost becomes a part of their identity - and that to me is just too extreme, when it gets to that degree it becomes very difficult to reason with that person - to present different ideas, counterpoints or new developments that comes to light that might put things in a new perspective, but their minds are made up through stubborness - with deeply set personal feelings, rather than what is. I wish people would be less inclined to hate, and more open minded and thoughtful when voicing their opinions. There is just a lot of unnecessary and misguided hate flowing around and it is mentally draining to even go through social media comments these days.

I’d love to keep up more with what the wonderful people I’ve met up with are doing, but social media has just become this cesspool of content and algorithms and misinformed takes in the comments that I didn’t sign up for. I am there to see my friends and family, how they’re doing and what they’ve experienced, not for some AI created content optimized to hijack my dopamin and keep me scrolling, to the detriment of ones mental health in the longer term. So I’ll be staunchly taking a stance against it, and instead just keep to this website for posting the bulk of my stuff going forward. And over a longer term, I have ideas for some kind of alternative to social media feeds and algorithms - that would instead prioritize connectedness with not just each other, but with nature itself too, as it has been neglected for far too long and I think pairing those too can be a positive thing.

We have the expression “Skogsbada” in Sweden (To bathe in the forest, soak in nature essentially), think of my alternative as both that and a new term “ögonbada” (to bathe in people’s eyes, to which I refer to seeing our friends and family face to face, to have more genuine connection rather than lose significant lifetime to algorithms - despite my autistic discomfort with eye contact, I wish I could do it effortlessly…).

Hopefully I’ll get to a point where I feel confident that I’ve gotten far enough to talk more about that project in the very near future.

Also consider this part of my journey with being true to myself, as I’ll be talking more about climate change which is something I care about deeply. Which sometimes can feel overwhelming or even contradictory to myself as I live vanlife…

You might have noticed the post kinda went off the rails from the title, welp, that’s just the way it’s gonna have to be now - unapologetically me, remember. And part of that is I have a tendency to wander off, and the mental energy to try and sort out these things into dedicated posts is just too much time. Same goes for spelling and grammar mistakes, I try to take a few passes to make sure it’s coherent and correct - but I will miss things, which I think most people can recognize tends to happen when trying to control for mistakes with ones own writing… And my grammar won’t be perfect, my flow won’t be perfect. But in this day and age, I honestly think that is more of a good thing than bad - because it means a human wrote it. Not some AI bullshit. And if a human didn’t pour themselves into making something, then why should a human care about consuming that which was created. Such as this blog post, or other forms of media.

So instead of getting hung up on those types of things, I hope you see it for what it is, just a dude on the internet doing what he enjoys doing and hopefully create something positive for others to also enjoy. This and other things I make might not be for you, and that’s alright. But I do hope you find things that you enjoy doing, people that enjoy being around you as much as you enjoy being with them, and that we all can find a better way to coexist with all life on Earth - not just humans (though we could treat each other better too), but also be in balance with our collective home instead of disturbing the sensitive balance that have created the possibilities for life to thrive.

Peace ✌️, Capper.

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Edits:

• Changed the title, old title: “What is the purpose of this website? (and other things that have been on my mind lately)”