Subtitle: Reflection on blogging, and the struggles of sharing For those who don’t know, Blaugust is a writing challenge to write 31 blog posts during the month of August. If you’re new to my blog, it’s nice to meet you! Writing with a laptop, stock image by Nick Morrison I only planned to get the bronze award, which is to just write five blog posts (~1 a week). And this is the last one. Very grateful I did it. It gave me a chance to update my blog with some much needed fixes, including: Added a “featured article” section. Not fancy, but will suffice new readers. Make article titles link to themselves (for easy sharing) Added tags, filtering types of articles you may be interested in Generating table of contents per article, responsive for mobile + desktop. As mentioned in another post, I compile the entire website from Markdown and some custom HTML templates. I took a chance to read others’ blog posts for Blaugust. Not just in my RSS reader, but their actual websites. Lots of really fun styles and interactive content. It’s given me inspiration for my own website(s), so it’s appreciated. While I will be going back to posting less often (I got a course to finish recording), I have been thinking about oversharing vs undersharing. Sharing More I’m used to not sharing. Sure, I’ve practiced enough where I can record a tutorial, share some Blender tips, or talk about what’s going on around us. The past two Blender conferences I attended have given me a lot of great practice. But being vulnerable and taking initiative socially is hard for me. Why? A multitude of reasons. Past experiences. Lack of confidence. People-pleasing. Not really that different from most people. I try to remember how I act around people I’m used to, and apply that to strangers. Easier said than done, but I can’t say “no one really knows me” if I never show it. So I’ve been trying to share in little ways. My #SundayThoughts I do on Mastodon. This blog’s “Wait a Little Longer” was a personal one for me. I’ve been participating at local church events. Not easy, especially with a toddler running around. But trying to take more steps. In an era of AI, I want to try to show my humanity more. A recent podcast episode talked about how the introverted artist won’t be possible anymore. We have to put ourselves out there, our humanity, as stark contrast to AI. Sharing Less A few years ago, I shared a big personal announcement to immediate family. While doing this, I wondered if I should put it on social media. I wanted to, honestly was this close to. My loving wife said I should wait for a couple months, and think about it first. Man and woman talking, stock image by Priscilla Du Preez Soon after, at a social, I ended up meeting this lady with a similar life event. After talking to her for a while, I asked her if she felt the need to share her experience: “Honestly no. It’s just me, my husband, and the few others here. My kids don’t even know.” It was a surreal, obvious epiphany. Of course. I don’t need to tell others online. So I’ve kept that one mostly to myself. Maybe I’ll share it at a later time, but right now, I don’t feel the need to. I felt that desire again recently, about a different topic: AI. Yes, the dreaded, horribly ambiguous word. In 2023, I initially was very curious about it for art. But after exploring it, I decided to not use it for future art. With those experiences, I occasionally get the urge to talk about those experiences and my feelings about AI: the good, the bad, the ugly. I draft out this huge article, or a long YouTube video, talking about my experiences with AI. What I’ve tried, what I don’t like and won’t use it for, all the ethical concerns that’s been a beaten dead horse for the past three years. But then I see others’ commentaries, both pro-AI and anti-AI. How both sides respond to them. And I think to myself, why bother? I want to have a good open conversation about this stuff. But every time I open social media, it convinces me that few really want to, at least in a healthy way. It might be one of those things that remains a one-on-one, “in voice chat only” kind of thing. There’s a lot I don’t like, and things I wish others were more aware of. But honestly, how people treat complete strangers online, make it really hard to want to. Like everything else … It’s a balance. An annoying answer, I know. Just as much as “it depends.” And I know I’m definitely on the side of not sharing enough. My heart drops a little whenever someone tells me, “I never knew that about you.” It’s deserved. I need to be better at sharing. It also means sharing things with the right people — and sometimes, only those people — in a healthy way.