To my blog
December 30, 2025
My blog is around three years old. I’ll count the purchase of this domain as its birth date.
‘Working in public’ is a phrase I hear often and it’s synonymous with the ‘builder.’ But I like having a blog because it allows me to think in public. I think it’s an investment of compounding gains that takes very little investment. I implore everyone to start one!
This year I didn’t write as much on mine. I’ve never had it as a strict obligation but although I think journalling has a similar effect, I did find that the growing optionality of writing here a factor in ‘thinking less.’
Consolidation is very powerful. In some ways, it’s the preservation of trains of thought as relics of fascination. It’s the sharpening of mental motions into clarity. A kind of clarity that is the melding of intuition, reflection, and personal narrative-making: an introspective philosophy. I think the kind of clarity that is the basis of action comes from another form of writing that I don’t do here.
While I did write a fair amount this year through other outlets, the audience of all those writings weren’t me. I think this makes a big difference in how much they benefited my own mind as a result. For that reason, I think having a blog can and should be a selfish act for most. I think having a Substack where I write spirited essays about my subjects of study would be very fun, but it wouldn’t be a blog in the conception of one that I have in mind. That said, starting one would be interesting.
It was in spring 2022 when a friend and I spoke about starting our own. He had already written a few and I had none. I thought to myself why would I start my own? No one would read it. I did anyway. First, you make the front page and you’re tasked with coming up with a little blurb about yourself. What do you do? That’s a good question to ask. I remember this used to be a list of fleeting topics of interest. Now, it’s more a list of places I’ve worked. Neither is better than the other I think. I’m still working on my introductions.
Fun fact: I’ve had a website for a while, but the other one was made by my dad. I’d write bad essays about the political and economic state of the world on it and then send it to him to upload it. I’d later learn basic web development and figure out Github pages which marked my digital sovereignty.
I got my first official internship at a small local magazine with it. The founder told me that it was the main reason I was hired. I was also a terrible employee. At the time, Ramadan meant staying up until the crack of dawn which meant that I was half awake for the calls we had.
Anyway, the blog was never about other people and yet it’s paid major dividends. It’s most definitely not a design portfolio but I find the weird, kinda ugly, Y2K aesthetic kind of charming. It feels like an ode to my young self that this exists so I hope it continues to.