Website publishing as external thought

I have long struggled with an in attention; the feeling that I should publish, what in fact, I despise the thought leadership industrial complex. From the early 2000s, SEO and affiliate marketing gurus promoted the sleazy self promotional aggrandizement that turned the delight of the Internet into a drudgery.

Oh, but we were so naïve then. Now, we have generative AI slop to take over the hard work of publishing crap to gain an audience. Even more than ever, independent, creative thought has been commoditized down to almost no value.

I've been exploring this tension. It runs high in many facets of my life. I want to show my fine artwork, but I don't want to contribute to Instagram and other social media platforms. I want to publish my thoughts, but I don't want the SEO rat race. 

I confused "I have valuable thoughts" with "I need to publish valuable thoughts for others".

The reframe:

• Website = My external thinking space
• Writing = Synthesis tool for pattern recognition
• Publishing = Side effect of having notes in public, not the goal
• No promotion, no metrics, no engagement theater