Existentials

Hello friends. I haven’t touched the website in a… three months it seems. The deploy was silent, too, because I haven’t hooked up anything. Especially the email to actually onboard anyone.

Whether you could find the excuses in different posts (who could code while walking about in kimonos?) nevertheless I’ll pull it out of the hat: I struggled finding the reasons to continue. Let’s walk through as to why, and then I’ll tell you my answer.

For starters, liability isn’t very fun. I got neurotically locked on how wide to define the extent of free speech when Cthulhu lurks in waiting subpoenas and angry emails. Ever since a certain fiasco and its crossfires on other participants… I of course wondered, how would I deal with this? I didn’t want to think about it nor continue. I guess I’d ignore emails… I wondered if I could wait until given an official court order. I’m not sure. I’m not a very idealistic man, to be honest; whoever stands a martyr may be forgotten in mere weeks, dealing with the consequences while the news piece hits the bin. Do you remember all of the burning monks and, however recently, the soldier torching himself outside the Whitehouse? I’m not sure what change happened after, but I think power is what move things, and unfortunately the law is how those with ample power silence peasants.

Secondarily, the “main feature” I got fixated on was the real-time collaboration aspect. The multiplayer, yet for many years I prefer singleplayer. Singleplayer is where you can go hide from the world and the dependencies you have on other people, however abstracted — the bank teller gifts me another 10,000 yen, another 5,000 NT back by the blood and sweat of the global economy and Soros’ alchemy. Why would I build something I would personally not use? There’s an “if” hanging off the balcony, a “maybe” wrapped between the metal bars, but I don’t know. Obviously I’ll continue supporting it because it’s already wired up, mostly, but it’s not a good enough reason…

Finally, building your own website is a dying genre. Most websites are for money, aren’t they? I mean, it’s hard for me to understand the “web-for-fun” demographic because I rarely, if ever, do website things on here. I write neurotica or commit inner exorcisms however obscurely, and somehow there’s a few following along. For those that follow along, as you can probably guess, I never wanted anything less than a place to express myself and it’s surprising anyone would listen, so thanks for your time. (I’ll be honest, I have trouble conceptualizing you exist.)

So I was in gridlock for awhile. Maybe it’s better for someone else to shoulder all the liability, close up shop and now I don’t have to worry about anything. Especially exacerbated by the potential multiplayer… and who even wants something new?

I wrote all this up a month ago, then did some minor edits. From this point I was going to talk about how privacy may be the answer to continue building the website, but maybe that’s not enough either.

The fact is I am here because spending time anywhere else online other than as a ghost is intolerable. Spending time, in general, can be difficult…

Anyway, I think the only way I continue to work on this is to switch up the tech-stack a bit and work on it a little each day as a diversion. I just don’t enjoy working in React other than the part of the website that needs it, which is the editor.

The fact is when you work and you have your projects the only way it pushes forward is if you can either empty your mind or fill your mind with farland dreams of how this invention shall change everything. But I struggle so much to even believe a million sentences changes a leaf to sway a little left in the breeze. I stare out my window and while the foliage feels so distant I can feel the next five years hurry through me in a minute.

Is it worth changing a life? I’ve apparently changed millions of lives while working at prior companies — millions of users. And I’ve change some few thousand, too. Why can’t it register?

Because it doesn’t matter to me. I don’t care if I’m useless until I die. I don’t find meaning in being useful to other people, and though there’s value to be had, I have a hard time giving any care to the inflating currency of the world that buys nothing for me except more existential despair.

So I can’t be motivated by money, nor by the people involved, and I can’t even seem to believe any action I’ll take will change the shifting scenery fundamental to using the Internet. What is left to conclude? I don’t want to believe in anything, I just want a fact that fuels enough for the next edit.

I’m not sure what it is.

But I sat about and thought a bit longer.

I am not an idealistic man anymore. There is nothing I believe in, in the original definition of the word. And that’s fine, isn’t it? What’s wrong with building just another choice? Another place? How it shapes is determined by those who use it.

I am the first user. As the first user, all I want is a place with a working CLI to upload to.

Whatever happens next is determined by popular demand. If that means likes & comments, so be it. And if that means a “profile” on the site, sure. Or an aggregator, why not! Shared themes, or scripting in Lua, having SQLite personal database, websockets, why not? Private pages, only available to you or followers, or multiplayer, sure. Meta-wide projects and wikis, may as well. It can be spun up.

The thing is, I know from a business perspective or human nature perspective that most of these things aren’t desired or even necessary. I have a feeling the whole “multiplayer” aspect will be a total flop.

But I don’t really care.

The whole point of this is for something to do, nothing less.