Moving out of the mainstream internet and creating things | nick's blog

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2022-05-18 06:00:05

I've been trying to move away at least a little bit from larger sites/doomscrolling and give more of my time to the smaller internet and personal tech projects. It's been more difficult than anticipated. I think mostly because I'm a bit lazy and don't do much to create these days. Being a part of the "tiny internet" seems to necessitate some interest in creation rather than consumption. It's hard to motivate for that though if you're so use to sticking with consumption.

Weirdly enough, it's had me doing some greater self-reflection. I'm a systems engineer by trade in an industry that is highly specialized. Most of my job is data analytics but it also involves a good amount of knowledge in how different boxes connect to each other. I had a coworker who had been in the industry for many years tell me straight up that "this job is just connecting boxes together" and he's not wrong. It was kinda weird to think about it like that. My job is almost a form of consumption. Often, I'm not creating things that are original by some definition. Sure maybe some configurations are original but at the lowest level, someone else did the work to bring that box into existence. That's not to say I'm upset about that. I think it's what I'm good at and what I've always done since becoming interested in technology.

At the same time though, I think it might be good to branch out onto that lower level. I use to be very interested in art when I was younger. That came out through drawing and later photography. I haven't done either in a serious way in a long time. I'm starting to feel like I need to recover that creativity. Seeing others online intentionally try to recover their own in communities like Yesterweb has inspired me a bit. Maybe this is a good place to channel my efforts if that's what I'm looking for. Especially if it weens me off of Facebook :)