Once a month or so, I come by this website and wonder what should I do with it. I started blogging in 1997 when I created my first website using Microsoft Frontpage. In 2005, I created a WordPress blog and started writing. Hundreds of posts on this website span back as far as that time. There is no rhyme or reason to this website anymore. If anything, it documents where I was and what I was thinking about at the time. However, I haven’t posted to it in years.
I often wonder if my old content has any value. Value is a measurement I use to determine whether or not something should be created or if something I created should continue to take up space. A few posts on this site continue to provide value, as I can measure that through web traffic analytics and comments left.
The biggest question I have is whether or not the content on this website provides meaning to me. Does it need to exist? Should I start over? Or just leave it and continue on?
Video and audio podcasts are easier for me to create. Spoken word travels out of my mouth faster than text from my fingers however, I recognize that the text I write is often more refined than my spoken word.
So how do you figure out what to do next? That question may, in fact, answer the questions I mentioned before. If what I want to do next benefits from the past, I should leave it. If it doesn’t, perhaps it’s time to start from scratch.
It’s possible I don’t yet know what is next. I have an idea, but I don’t know if it brings the level of value I hope it will. It also might be that I fear a lack of available time will lead to another undeveloped idea I will delete later. This isn’t my first rodeo.
There are too many mediums by which someone can share these days. It’s really hard to choose. Audio and video have taken over the written word. The attention span is far too short to read. Is the written word slowly dying? I can’t remember the last time I searched for something wanting a visual answer on anything other than YouTube.
Perhaps more time will help me figure this out. My family and I are about to leave on a month-long road trip in our travel trailer across eastern Montana, South Dakota, and Wyoming. I will attempt to use that time to figure these questions out.
If there is one thing I am recognizing now after having written this post, is that writing is therapeutic. Once you write it, it is done. A video or podcast has to be edited. It’s just thumbnails and waveforms on the timeline. The end result is a file. When I write, it’s all there before me. Whether someone reads this or not, I feel accomplished having written these words, more so than if I had spoken into a microphone.
See you soon.