Meant to, I Swear

I have started to feel a certain—guilt isn't the right word, but something along those lines with how I have been writing here. Missing out isn't what it is either, but there's shades of it. I don't feel really bad, it's more like being back in school, you've just gotten home from class, and you're watching an episode of Stargate to unwind a little, but at the back of your mind you know that you have homework to do. Some project to work on. It can mostly be ignored, but it still spoils what you wish was rest a little.

The way I see it, part of the fun of having my own little site here is being an active participant in the internet, in a way that's separate from posting on social media. In particular sharing links to things that I have read or seen gives a distinct feeling of adding to, of being a part of the Network.

But the majority of my posts don't have any links, any connections. They're just my thoughts, self contained, with a minimum of context to (I hope) make them sensible. That's where I feel I haven't been doing what I should. Should, again, is the wrong word. There is nothing wrong, after all, with letting your writing stand by itself. But I feel a dissatisfaction—there's the word I've been looking for!—with that.

Timely to this, I read a post by Jedda recently[1] about a bad habit of reading other people's posts and meaning to respond but failing to follow through. It is unfortunately relatable to me, and in large part how I ended up here. I have dozens of tabs of various blog posts open because I think that I might want to mention them in some part of my own writing. They languish for weeks, months, until I eventually admit defeat and just close them.

I've written one post that was a desperate attempt at attacking my habits. But naturally you do not break a habit with a one off post. It starts with one post, like this one, followed by another, and another, and another.