Slowing Down

I've been doing a lot of scrolling recently. I think starting this project will hopefully give me something better to do than that. Punch (the monkey) is so cute though, to be fair. How will I know if the other monkeys accept him or not if I'm not up to date on my reels?!

Anyways, every so often I think to myself that I need to get off my phone, and generally I really want to! I set screentime limits, have other forms of entertainment, purposely leave my phone where I can't access it super easily, etc, but at the end of the day as soon as I go on that thing I end up on instagram scrolling. All it takes it turning my phone on for the muscle memory to kick in and take me straight to my reels when I finish whatever I set out to do (sometimes even before that). The hope is that this will give me a reason to be on my laptop instead of my phone. Even if the amount of screentime I am getting remains the same, I consider this to be a much more productive use of my time than scrolling is.

With this site, I'm using my mind actively and putting something out into the world, rather than rotting. I can make something I'm proud of, and refine it as I go, instead of turning my mind off and staring at my phone like a dumbass.

The design aspect of making my own website gives me something to think about instead of jumping right to my phone when I'm bored. Using my mp3 for music has also been a huge help in this. Since the device only does music, there's nothing for me to do on it other than turn the volume up or pause it. It's given me something that I'm excited about, capable of doing, makes a positive impact on my life, and is also sick as fuck. Because what do you mean I'm walking around with my noise cancelling headphones connected to an iPod shaped thing in my pocket?? Are you kidding?? That's so cool????

This website is sort of meant to be like that. A place I can mess around and spend my time doing something I am excited about. Most of the setup for my mp3 is done, so maybe I'm just looking for something similar to replace the excitement of that project. But, also, I want to be part of de-industrializing the internet. It's so boring now and I want to be part of sprucing it up!

I've had tons of attempts to make a spot for me to write down my thoughts. I've been through journals, Tumblr accounts, rating apps, and more journals. It just seems like nothing sticks as a longterm (or even shortterm) solution. I've considered trying to have a blog before, but now, here I am, with a blog. It feels more concrete (?) I guess, than writing in a journal or posting to the void on Tumblr. This involves thinking and work, and has such a cool community centered around a love for the things you can do with a keyboard and a neocities account. The wider community is based on the concept of having a site itself, rather than on the content you put onto it. In conclusion, I think this is cool, I like web dev, I like syling websites, and I hope I can keep this going for a while!