windchimeghost | Entries tagged with blogging

Oh! Hey! Hello! *waves* 👋 😃 Long time no post. I'm not sure if anyone out there is reading this blog, but if you are, I’m SO sorry I disappeared for, like, a year or year and a half. Ugh. 😵 Has it really been that long since I last posted??? Sheesh.

So much has been happening in my personal life since I made this blog account. Life’s been busy, crazy, and hectic in so many ways that I really haven't been able to keep up with. Some of it’s personal, so I won’t go into those details. I’ve also been sick off and on with one thing and another (sinus allergies, acid reflux, stomach issues, etc). Mainly, I feel like I’ve been struggling to heal from a lot of things. So much has been happening lately that’s drained me emotionally and mentally and been overall taxing on my health in general. I think some of my sickness has spawned from that, as well as from stress and anxiety. 2024 started out horrible, so the past several months as far back as January have been horrific in their own ways. A lot of stress and anxiety. But I've also seen a lot of answered prayers and blessings this year that have left me speechless. (Thanking God for His mercy and grace. 🙌 ) Again, a lot of this is personal, so I’m not going to go into details on a public blog. Life HAS calmed down to a certain extent right now, thank goodness, but the months still tend to come with their own trials.

Been struggling to get back into my writing for a while now. Just within the past few months, I’ve been writing some short fanfics to ease myself back into the groove, which has felt good to do. I’m still going at it even now, so I’m hoping this helps to kick my writing mind into full gear again. I've needed this so bad. I was beginning to wonder what happened to my writing muse.

Planning to go on a mini trip with my cousins this summer, so I’ve been busy preparing for that. SO excited!! I’ve needed this outing so much, you have no idea. Hoping that it helps to heal and refresh me in ways I need to be.

It's hard for me to grasp that we're already halfway through 2024 and the 4th of July is in another few weeks. Crazy!

As of right now, I’ve pretty much pushed all social media out of my life. With the exception of Instagram. But I’m now having second thoughts about even it since they’ve changed their policies to allow AI scraping and theft of copyrighted content. I pulled all of my artwork off my account at the beginning of the month and will not be posting anymore art on there from now on. I’ll just post photos and such. Stuff having to do with collectibles. I’ll continue to be active on there since I still like the platform and enjoy following certain people. But none of my art will ever be uploaded there again unless they give US residents an option to opt out.

But, it feels good having pushed myself away from social media. I definitely have no regrets. It’s been fun and refreshing getting away from all of that and feel like I'm free to live life as I did prior to social media becoming a thing. I feel less stress, less frustration, less anxiety, and more relaxed. Overall, I feel like I can enjoy things in life again and living in the moment more without thinking I’ve got to document it to put on Facebook. It's opened my eyes to see that everything I do doesn't have to be everyone else's business (and shouldn't be). And that I'm the one who decides what should be shared and what shouldn't be. It’s interesting how social media conditions you to basically be stressed out all the time and feel like you've GOT to post it on there and share it with the world. Sort of a digital peer pressure, I guess you’d call it. No more will I be a victim of this feeling. I'm done with it. I've purged myself of it and have no plans to go back to social media.

I really want to get back into blogging heavily again, because I enjoy it so much more than social media. It's way more fun and enjoyable. I feel like it's low maintenance and doesn't require me to always be here to entertain an audience. It requires me to take time and think through my posts and be more creative with them as well as put more substance to them, which is far more satisfying to the writer side of me than quick chitchat of social media. I only have to post when I feel like emptying thoughts. It doesn't require me to be part of an algorithm or toxic environment full of politics, news, ads, bots, spam, and otherwise. My blog space feels like a quiet, secluded part of the Internet that's just for me and whoever wishes to follow my ramblings. It reminds me of how the older Internet used to be before social media took over and ruined everything.

I’m going to TRY and keep this up. We'll see if I disappear again. 🤞

Okaaaaaay. I’m really not sure what I’m doing anymore, tbh. 😅 I just signed up and got a new blog over on LiveJournal last week. Then I found myself getting an account here on Dreamwidth this week. And already I think I prefer Dreamwidth more. Hrrrm. Good thing I haven’t posted much on LJ.

So yeah. Anyways. Haha! I’ll use both blogs throughout this year and see which one I find myself gravitating toward the most. And that one will be my main one, I guess? I already feel like this one will be my main one. Mostly because I like Dreamwidth’s policies and high support of free expression and such. Censorship is one thing I’m trying to get away from right now as far as social media goes. Which is why I’m distancing myself from social media as much as possible right now. There are other reasons why I no longer care to be on social media, but this is at the top of the list.

I also like Dreamwidth more already because it looks and feels more active and up-to-date when I do searches for fellow bloggers and communities. Hoping to meet some new friends on here in the future!

To be honest. I didn't know Dreamwidth was even still going. A friend of mine told me it was still around, so I looked it up. I remember this place from waaaaaaay back a long time ago! Yikes! 😬 Glad to see it's stood the test of time and is still going strong!

Below is the first post I uploaded on my LiveJournal the other day, explaining my recent decision to get back into blogging in 2023. Cross-posted it to here:

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Gracious. It’s been SO long since I last did any blogging. I feel a bit rusty! 😅 Since I'm starting out with a new account, I do feel like I need to do a proper introduction for those who don't personally know me. But I'll do that at a later time through future posts. Right now, I'm just trying to get this new blog started so I can feel like I'm headed in some kind of direction with it.

I’ve been doing a lot of changes in my life since the new year started. In my ongoing effort to distance myself from the cesspool of social media, I feel like I’ve come full circle. I started out blogging and I’ve come back to blogging. Let’s face it. There’s just something about having a blog that’s ten times better than social media. It’s like I was telling my cousins. Blogs feel like that little quiet, quaint, out-of-the-way coffee shop and bookstore while social media is Walmart. Social media is okay in short, quick trips, but you hang out at the coffee shop because it’s quiet and easygoing and has books to read.

I guess it’s mostly because I’m a writer and an introvert. I like putting thought and substance into what I write and post. I like thinking hard about random things and posting it in one long post on a blog more so than social media. Social media, to me, feels like small talk. Blogs feel like you’re writing a short story or an entry in a real diary or journal. A blog forces you to think about what you write ahead of time and forces you to be creative with it instead of just quickly posting snippets of what you’re doing at that moment like you're documenting every aspect of your life, including the boring parts no one cares about.

Lately, I’ve felt burned out on social media in general, with the exception of Instagram. (Instagram is the unique one out of the group that’s good for creating art and photo galleries.) And my reasons vary and make a full list. In short, I feel like social media as a whole has deviated away from what it was originally intended to be: another type of blog. It’s something that started off good in the beginning when it was still new to all of us but mobile devices and such have made it too mainstream and too ‘loud’, so to speak. On top of this, it’s become an unhealthy addiction with so many people. They’ve got to constantly see what everyone’s doing and saying and posting. They’ve got to constantly be in on the gossip and news, even if it’s none of their business. Politics, news, drama, gossip, advertisements. This is basically what social media has grown into in recent years. In the process, it’s become anti-social. Because no one really cares about carrying on a decent conversation with others anymore. It’s quicker to just hit the ‘like’ button and move on. Or if you do manage to strike up a conversation with someone, it always results in them getting offended by something you say. So everyone has pretty much grown silent and sticks to their own little corner of Facebook or Twitter or whatever platform it is.

Don't get me wrong. Social media still has its good qualities, too, underneath. Being able to connect with friends and family you wouldn't otherwise be connected to on one platform is probably the only good quality social media has left. Because nowadays it's difficult to keep in touch with some people (family members especially) outside of social media since no one wants to e-mail anymore, or has time to. Someplace like Facebook does make keeping in touch a lot easier and quicker, especially when most of your family is spread out all over the country or outside of the country.

But, I'm tired of social media. I've quickly become part of the crowd who's decided I no longer need it dominating my life. I need a break. So that's why I'm back on LiveJournal, starting out fresh with a new account. I need a place to empty my thoughts that's away from the hussle and bussle of social media. I feel like I'm a different person now than I was. I've grown. I've matured. I've experienced a lot of things in life since I last had a blog. I'm excited to see where this all leads this year. Hoping I can keep it up and going better than I used to. I've always loved blogging, but I've also always been bad at keeping a blog active. I always tend to get busy with other things and forget about it. Ulp. 😣 Maybe that won't happen this time.

So, anyway. Here's to a new year of blogging! 🥳

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Entries tagged with blogging

Life Has a Way of Carrying You Downstream

Giving This Blogging Thing Another Go in 2023

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June 2024

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