Init

I decided recently that I need to expand my digital footprint. My reasoning for this decision is straightforward: at some point in the indeterminate future, I may need to produce important content and I would want people to engage with it. However, if I don't spend the time building a following, then this potential important content will go the way of much of the content on the internet: the three followers I fux with on Twitter will form a short thread full of inside jokes in response to the tweet containing the link. When trees are always falling in the forest, we very quickly develop auditory fatigue. If a tree wants to be heard falling, it must cultivate an audience, so here we are.

However, building a digital footprint presents its own challenges. Chief amongst these is that it requires content that a large number of people find interesting. I have found it nigh on impossible to predict the things that a large number of people will find interesting.

Generally appealing content ruled out, the other option I have instead is content that I would find interesting. On this front I am plagued by three things. First, what do I have to add to the conversation that someone else has not already said in some better variation? Second, I can be lazy to the point of stupor and I am very good at finding justifications for my laziness. Finally, there is something that bothers me deeply about the mercenary and transactional nature of being online. Further, I am wary of the ways performance engenders changes to the self.

A more cynical person than I could argue that all interaction is ultimately reducible to transactional performance. Instead, I will settle for the less cynical but still spicy take that all online interaction is ultimately transactional performance (I am aware of the tension between this statement and the decision to publish this post online, but I did not create the rules of online, I only live by them. Also I make no claims to ideological purity; colour me hypocrite if you want bro, whatevs ¯\(ツ)/¯).

Of the three things I have listed, the greatest barrier to entry is my laziness so this post is my way of addressing that problem in this moment. I cannot say what will happen in all of the moments to come, it may very well be my last post. As to what new insights I can add to the conversation, I have decided, at least for the sake of these posts, that it don't matter man! As long as I am adequately satisfied with the product. Which brings be to the last point, the mercenary blah-blah of it all. My solution here is that I don't have one, but I will share (ha! see!) more as my thinking around the issue evolves.

I will be writing about whatever I feel I should write about. A lot of it will be mild, but I hope to fit in

In exchange for my eternal thanks kind persons, I beseech you all: bestow upon me whatever engagement quanta this site-web has to offer.