I keep falling in and out of blogging. It's such a personal thing. When I
was in my teens and early twenties, the internet was a smaller thing, and
it felt easier to open up. Like only people you wanted to see your words
would see them. If some miserable little flea wanted to make things bad
for you, you didn't really have to worry about them playing internet
detective and figuring out where you live or anything.

That's what's so scary about it. I have some paranoia about stalkers--I've
had a few bad experiences. But I still crave the connection that can come
from an online journal. I have a pen-and-paper journal, too--a series of
notebooks, something I've been better about as an adult than I was as a
teenager. But a paper journal is a fantasy of connection. It has its
value, but in the end it's an expression without an audience.

I don't know where I'm going with this. Like all older people I miss
elements of how things used to be, things that, in the end, don't matter
that much. Is the world lesser for having an internet that's less like
tilde.town than it was twenty years ago? Maybe, but I expect people who
didn't experience it don't really feel like they missed anything. I'm old
enough to have nostalgia, so I do, and I don't know if it's because the
"old way" was better, or just because it felt safer and more familiar
than the modern social media paradigms do to me now. The big social media
platforms feel dangerous now, and I'm far more cautious about what I
share there. I try to keep some emotional distance. In the end that's not
very good for the soul, especially during pandemic when there are fewer
other sources of companionship.