Reflection and Scrutinisation

I still feel the precense of the virus that made me ill last week. I haven’t been completely inactive though. The day before yesterday, I bought and downloaded the latest version of Movable Type. This is basically the same publishing platform I use today, but when I have installed the program on my server, I no longer need the hosting service of TypePad. In other words, I will have complete control of everything associated with my website.

The thing that sparked my decision to run the entire website on my own server was TypePad’s sudden change to my archive. Overnight, and with no prior warning, they added pagination and restyled the archives. I don’t really mind the changes per se, but as I’m the legally responsible publisher ("ansvarig utgivare" is the legal term in Swedish) of Aqurette.com, I’m obligated by law to document any changes to the website.

I have not yet decided when I will install the new publishing platform. The current system will run for another two weeks or so.

While I was lying feverish in bed feeling sorry for myself, I thought about what I want to do with my online journal. I have noticed a small decline in readership over the past few months. So I took the time to read through it all and realised too much of it is simple one-liners with links to other websites. In the past, I used to collect several links in one entry, which, I guess, made reading the blog easier. I, too, find it annoying when bloggers publish twenty entries a day with noting more than links. Therefore I will try to publish fewer links-only entries. I don’t want my readers’ feed aggregators to be spammed with my entries. Sometimes less truly is more.

When I read through my blog entries from the past six months I noticed how lazy I have become. Not only does much of the blog consist of one-line entries, there are far too few longer articles. When I think about it, it strikes me as odd that I don’t publish the things I write for my seminars at the university. Perhaps I have always thought that people are not interested in my ideas about religion, ethics, and philosophy. I can see from my old archives that I used to post writings of this kind, but that I stopped doing it about a year ago. I don’t know why. Perhaps I had an idea about shorter entries being better suited to a blog, or maybe I unconsciously tried to compete with more popular blogs—as if going downmarket is the way to achieve respect and a loyal readership.

What I do know is that life is too short for half-heartedness. For that reason I will try to rid myself of all conformist ideas and push the libertarian, queer, and secular agenda conservatives and socialists despise me for.

The blogging will be slow until I have fully recovered. The installation of the new publishing platform and designing of the new blog will take much of my time in the weeks to come. But by the end of this month, I will be back with something that, hopefully, will be better for my readers and myself alike.