on blogging
About 15 years ago, i used to write in my blog more than once a day. At that time, blogging was done by only a few and the term 'blogging' was coined later - it was sometimes called weblog or blog, or even digital diaries.
Now, after a lot of years have gone by, my time spent on the internet has increased in such a dimension, i can not find words for it. I make a living out of building stuff on and for the internet. I gather almost everything of my current knowledge out of the internet. I feel the internet is much more than a just a new media, like television or radio was once. I feel it started a cultural shift and became something, that has all kind of human areas in it, on its own.
The internet, which is filled by a lot of different people can give you all aspects regarding your life, whether it be art, medical information, music, games, information about how to raise kids, how to train your body without walking to a gym and what-not. Well, you could even learn how to build a power plant or something in that range of sophisticated stuff.
But before i start talking about what i am talking about, let me start, why i am here in the first place.
I first found out about the internet at school. My cool physics and science teacher showed us, what different parts of the internet are there. He explained world wide web, as well as email and internet relay chat. The moment, he dropped into a channel, saying 'hello' into a room full of strangers where the one, that fascinated me the most.
Eventually, someone from Australia replied with a nice: "Hello, i am from Australia - where are you from?". It was that very moment, that settled my love with a digital connected world. For me, it was a big movie going on in my head, that i am at that moment would be possible to reach out to complete different people, getting to know about their feelings, political directions and all other stuff, they are happy to share.
It was a new source of information, that was not the media. Although i did not know at that time, how f#cked up our media is, i was aware, that this is a much better way of retrieving information. Get information that is not censored and not bend, just to fit into the view of a person in charge for publishing.
At that time, i started to use the internet more often. Actually, i used it so much, that my phone bill doubled every month, until it a certain point. That point was the one, that made me an entrepreneur. For me, it was clear, not to lower my usage of internet and being connected, but to find a way to pay for that.
I started with some jobs, to earn money, just to pay for being online. For about 2 years, i paid for internet connection bills, what other people earn as a household-income. I even managed to have enough time left, after working, to use the internet.
It was that time, i opened up an internet-cafe. I wanted to make sure, everybody can connect to other people, regardless of they have a computer, a service provider or knowledge about all that. I started to teach other people how to use the internet.
At that time, i visited a lot of different websites and read quite a few blogs that interested me. Ranging from a hiv-positive gay, with a passion for the bee-gees and a big talent for screendesign, over a teenager who was a talented software developer up to reading up on some of the more well-known bloggers, that eventually became journalists or spokesmen of the blogger-scene.
I welcomed the transparency and open exchange of information. I enjoyed the willingness of people to share things, emotions, writings, whatever they are up to. The most important thing for me was, learning something about other people, about the world in general and how things go in foreign countries.
When i started building websites and also how to code serverside-software, it took not long to get me into open source. Again, it was the openness, the transparency and the open mindset of different people that fascinated me, that allowed me to learn so much more, than just learning offline. I became part of being open source because i wanted to give back. I read that, sharing is caring and so i did.
Although i did not realized it at first hand, my time vanished. I was part of a mill that took time away from me, while i was learning new stuff and connecting with people all around the world. Then, something happened.
I married, became a father and suddenly started to value my time more. I wanted to take part in my own family life, as well as being part of the online community. Most of the time, i spent working on client projects and therefore was connected anyway. But spare time was something, i could not spell. Also, i wanted to separate my real life, with my virtual, at least for the more personal things. I just shared code, and some comments about it. But nothing more.
Whereas some others still publish their whole life. At that time, facebook became bigger and bigger and so we all had our look into it. I did not like it. I signed up and did not know what to share on facebook. It had nothing to do with valuable content and hand-crafted items. It was just a distributor for funny links and pictures. That was nothing i was into too much.
My wife never liked the way how people publish their life into these platforms, so without a decision on it, we never shared any personal or family related stuff. It was obvious to me, because none would be interested in just more kids pictures. Our own family came to visit often enough to stay in the loop.
But, what i did not realize was: i also stopped blogging, and writing. I felt, that everything i thought and felt, just needs to be inside. It is nothing to share or publish. But i was wrong.
Today, i realized, i have to share some of my thoughts. That is, why i am writing this. Welcome to my blog. Delivered to you, by me.