Last week I took down a website I created a long time ago. It wasn't the first I ever created, but it was the biggest, and it was all mine. I hadn't tended to it in several years, having lost interest in maintaining it, so if anything the deletion was an act of mercy.
I remember when I first created that website. It was a repository for various fascinations of mine, and also a little slice of my personality shared with the world. Back when the Internet was a little newer, it was different. There was no such thing as Facebook, where you'd post your own pictures and your own thoughts and so forth, and the word "blog" would have sounded like the coda to an afternoon of beer drinking. The means of self-expression still contained considerable do-it-yourself steps.
The web didn't seem as big and scary then as it does now. Back then, my e-mail address was on most all of the pages; spambots and fanboys weren't the worries they would later become. There was something sort of innocent about sharing a little bit of yourself online, and if you wrote to somebody about something on their website, you more often felt you were about to reach a fellow enthusiast instead of perhaps provoking an unwelcome surprise. Looking back, there's a few things I would have told my younger self not to share worldwide, but back then it seemed okay. (But isn't it funny that, even then, I knew not to put pictures up of myself? At least I knew that much.)
Back then, too, the website brought me some unexpected surprises. It helped me make a few friends, including one or two close friends I cherish to this day. It brought me an invitation to serve as a consultant on a project or two. It was even the focus of a brief article somebody wrote.
But the world turned and I got busy with other things, and since about the year 2000, the website started to atrophy. Having a full-time job, and getting interested in other things, took away the time and inclination to tinker with the website. I got tired of answering the same e-mailed inquiries about the same things mentioned on the website (no, I'm not going to copy my videotape of that program for you, because I don't have the time or the equipment to do it -- if I answered that one once, well, you get the picture).
I started taking parts of the site down, and took my e-mail address off the pages. Within a couple years, two-thirds of the site was gone. I'd have taken it all down, except for a promise I made to keep one section going. It just sort of went along by itself for the next several years. Meanwhile, I went on with other things, finding more and more pleasure in doing things that don't require an online presence. Eventually, I put a robots file in the directory, but I couldn't bring myself to trash the site.
Last week, the coming new year made me think it was time to do some housecleaning. For one, I'd toyed with a new address for my private e-mail. The one I had was comfortable and had seen me through a lot, but it was time for a new start. Along with the new address, I decided, it was time to take down the old website. So I did. I didn't really feel anything as I watched the files delete; maybe a little bit of nostalgia, but I knew the world in which the site was born and the me that created those pages were of another time and place.
The version of me that writes this blog is older and more jaded. And also more careful. I think about some things I shared back then that make me cringe now, because on looking back they seem ill-advised or immature. I wish I could go back and keep them from being said in the first place.
On the other hand, in the years since I've been keeping this online journal, I've been a lot more careful. There's a handful of things that perhaps I'd have phrased a little differently, but on the whole I can look back in the archives without cringing. I doubt if, ten years from now, I'll look back on this project with regret.
I remember when I first created that website. It was a repository for various fascinations of mine, and also a little slice of my personality shared with the world. Back when the Internet was a little newer, it was different. There was no such thing as Facebook, where you'd post your own pictures and your own thoughts and so forth, and the word "blog" would have sounded like the coda to an afternoon of beer drinking. The means of self-expression still contained considerable do-it-yourself steps.
The web didn't seem as big and scary then as it does now. Back then, my e-mail address was on most all of the pages; spambots and fanboys weren't the worries they would later become. There was something sort of innocent about sharing a little bit of yourself online, and if you wrote to somebody about something on their website, you more often felt you were about to reach a fellow enthusiast instead of perhaps provoking an unwelcome surprise. Looking back, there's a few things I would have told my younger self not to share worldwide, but back then it seemed okay. (But isn't it funny that, even then, I knew not to put pictures up of myself? At least I knew that much.)
Back then, too, the website brought me some unexpected surprises. It helped me make a few friends, including one or two close friends I cherish to this day. It brought me an invitation to serve as a consultant on a project or two. It was even the focus of a brief article somebody wrote.
But the world turned and I got busy with other things, and since about the year 2000, the website started to atrophy. Having a full-time job, and getting interested in other things, took away the time and inclination to tinker with the website. I got tired of answering the same e-mailed inquiries about the same things mentioned on the website (no, I'm not going to copy my videotape of that program for you, because I don't have the time or the equipment to do it -- if I answered that one once, well, you get the picture).
I started taking parts of the site down, and took my e-mail address off the pages. Within a couple years, two-thirds of the site was gone. I'd have taken it all down, except for a promise I made to keep one section going. It just sort of went along by itself for the next several years. Meanwhile, I went on with other things, finding more and more pleasure in doing things that don't require an online presence. Eventually, I put a robots file in the directory, but I couldn't bring myself to trash the site.
Last week, the coming new year made me think it was time to do some housecleaning. For one, I'd toyed with a new address for my private e-mail. The one I had was comfortable and had seen me through a lot, but it was time for a new start. Along with the new address, I decided, it was time to take down the old website. So I did. I didn't really feel anything as I watched the files delete; maybe a little bit of nostalgia, but I knew the world in which the site was born and the me that created those pages were of another time and place.
The version of me that writes this blog is older and more jaded. And also more careful. I think about some things I shared back then that make me cringe now, because on looking back they seem ill-advised or immature. I wish I could go back and keep them from being said in the first place.
On the other hand, in the years since I've been keeping this online journal, I've been a lot more careful. There's a handful of things that perhaps I'd have phrased a little differently, but on the whole I can look back in the archives without cringing. I doubt if, ten years from now, I'll look back on this project with regret.
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