There’s a sort of dilemma I face when it comes to making this site known to others on my own. I’m not much into flexing or even letting people know about something I created for personal use, and this place doesn’t have anything worth flexing about. Yet, I’d like it to have a few visitors who came here either on their own or because I specially revealed this place to them. When it comes to revealing it to others, the numbers can be counted on one hand. That’s just a handful of people, but again, I won’t make an announcement. What I mean is, I won’t mind if they come across this place by any means.

Despite this site being in the public domain with the source code available on GitHub, I still think it’s very personal to me. Wait, so why make it public if it’s personal? The answer is—desire. I’d like to mention it everywhere in the public space because I don’t like leaving the ‘personal site’ section empty. On a lighter note, it adds a little bit of content to the profile. To me, it’s more of a decorative piece that I’d like no one to touch, but I still have the privilege to put it anywhere I want. I know it’s not possible, and that’s why I used the word ‘desire’ in the beginning. Moreover, I don’t renew any of the domains that I buy, and I don’t buy them for a longer period of time. I wish this was more about the money because buying a domain for 10 years is cheaper than renewing it every consecutive year. I like cool domain names, but I get bored of them, and since I don’t have to worry about maintaining a permanent place on the internet, I change domain names every year. I might have changed it more than a dozen times.

Nothing feels more awkward than when someone says, ‘Hey, I read your blog,’ or ‘Hey, I saw your site,’ and I don’t know how to respond. Should I say thank you? Or should I ignore their remark entirely? Most of the time, I just say, ‘Oh, okay,’ because that’s how I genuinely feel, and I don’t feel like saying anything more. A casual thank you might work, but it doesn’t seem to fit the context of the mention. In my mind, I think I’d have been better off without knowing this information, but now that I know, it makes me feel like I should take entire thing off the internet, and I’ve done is several times. What can be the good reason for that? Well, I honestly don’t know. There’s something odd that I feel which is hard to explain, or maybe it’s close to “hey, I know you because I read what you wrote, so now I see where you stand”. But the problem is — I don’t go back and read my blog posts so I don’t know what they’re talking about. I try to write things descriptively and sometimes it reveals me in bits and pieces, so I feel exposed, but I can’t be sure if this is the reason. Moreover, what I write is substantial only for that particular period. Once I’m done with what I have to say, my words hold no value and don’t represent what I stand for because I know my thoughts will change. So, what I’ve written only makes sense in the context of when it was written — I’m not sure about this either.

As I’m trying to figure out why I prefer this place not to be widely known, I’ve come up with some reasons, though I’m not entirely confident about them. I’ll likely come across multiple explanations, and eventually, I’ll make peace with myself and adjust my thoughts so I don’t feel the urge to either respond to someone’s remark or take the site down. Maybe I’m halfway through this process, but it’s going to take a while to find the exact reason. I’ve been this way since 2014—the first time I made my site public. It’s true that I’m writing about it for the first time, but it’s been ten years of holding the same narrative, so there must be a reason for it. If I get uncomfortable with my own thoughts, I’ll come back and write about it, but for now, I must not put unnecessary weight over it. After all, self-reflection is a marathon, not a sprint. Maybe one day, the reason will just click. Let’s see when that happens!

Good night 🌙