The paradoxes of blogging
I think I like the idea of blogging, or the concept, more than actually writing posts. I have written on a couple of blogs in the last two decades, with my first in 2006. I wrote about science fiction and self-hosted my blog using WordPress on a small server running OpenBSD that sat under my desk. That blog was my way into Danish science fiction fandom and at the time there was a small group of like minded bloggers, where people read and commented on each others posts. That whole thing sort of faded away around 2010 where social media, especially Facebook, took a hold on people and many of these niche interest groups moved their online interactions there.
Independent or hosted platform
Which lead me to the first paradox or dilemma of joining Bear Blog. In principle I prefer to self-host, because if we have learned anything from the last two decades of various internet service platform, it is that it is dangerous to become too dependent on a specific platform. You can become almost a hostage if things turn south. You can lose, or be forced to abandon, all your content and readers. But the platforms also have the upsides of bringing in actual readers and a network effect. Without that, simply posting to a self-hosted blog can feel like writing for the void.
Bear Blog comes with a community of sorts. The discovery feature is a great way for readers to follow "the best" posts from a large pool of blogs, rather than curating their own list of feeds to subscribe to. While Bear Blog doesn't have any comment system, some have added guestbooks or simply encourage readers to send them an email. There seems to be a friendly community on Bear Blogs that I think big platforms like WordPress.com or Blogger.com lacks.
While I don't fear that Bear Blog will enshitify and it really seems like Herman has gone to great lengths to consider the longevity of the platform, there is still only one maintainer and things can go wrong. The solution is of course is to bring your own domain, to at least have the option of migrating away without losing content or existing readers.
I hate writing
My other paradox is how I actually really don't like the process of writing and never have, but I like the concept of having written something and put it on the internet. I don't know how scientifically true it is, but I have read somewhere that the dopamine release you get from thinking about having done something is the same as actually doing it. No wonder it is hard to get moving if I have already gotten most of my satisfaction simply by writing a note about what I want to write about.
I know writing is hard and have massive respect for good writers. I don't even have an ambition of becoming particular good at writing, and it is nice to remember this is just a blog and not an essay for The Atlantic Monthly.
Writing this have been a little bit easier, as it is more freeform thoughts than my other blogs that are very review oriented. Even though I seem to have fallen victim to a common theme of meta-blogging about blogging that many others on Bear Blogs seems to do, it is still nice to have started.