It’s been a long time since I’ve written a blog post, and a big reason for that is that blogging has always been the pressure relief valve on my brain when I have stuff to say and not enough room to make the videos to discuss. Given I am a new parent, my desire to do extra writing has been dramatically diminished, but if I am honest, with the US election (which I have mostly kept out of mind… to the extent possible) I’ve just felt like I wanted to spend some time reflecting.
I’ll be honest, I’ve enjoyed what has effectively been my first long break from YouTube (although I did pre-prepare videos) in around five years. Making videos is exhausting, and I think it’s underrated how much of the work is things like replying to comments and reminding people to watch the video before asking why you didn’t talk about something you talked about in the video. Since things have been super crazy busy (for reasons explained in the above paragraph), I have been a bit more hands off around posting and replying to comments on videos, and honestly it’s been nice — there’s a sense when you make things online and have a community that you need to engage and respond to people, but you don’t, and people unfortunately often don’t engage with creators in a way that would make them want to.
The strange thing is… through making less videos, I’ve also felt less motivation to blog. I think in part you can make sense of that because the process of making videos leads to lots of “spin off” ideas for blog posts, but I also think when you are in the mindset of making stuff it often gets expressed in all kinds of ways.
That being said, with 2025 fast approaching, there are some changes I’m planning on. I do want to blog again more regularly, but I think the breakdown is going to lean much more in the “Off-Topic” direction than it did in 2024. YouTube is my job and I probably should stop taking perfectly good video topics and putting them out as blog posts when that’s what keeps the lights on. At the same time, while I am happy I got on WordPress at the end of 2023 in response to Substack’s “meh” attitude to hateful speech, the reality is there are just fewer people willing to follow a blog outside of a platform like that, and I also get the sense that WordPress is just worse at getting people signed up.
The reason I mention blogging more is that well, I feel like I have much more to say, especially with regards to personal development and the like. I spent a big chunk of my time in 2024 explicitly pursuing non-monetary goals, and while I’d say I only completed 50-60% of my goals, I still am very happy with that, and I think I am well primed for another year of goal achievement. Essentially, expect more blog hosts here — particularly in 2025, but probably less exclusively transit related stuff.
Of course, if you want even more of my thoughts and takes on various things, then you should follow me on Mastodon, I am also still on BlueSky and X, but I see Mastodon as a social media platform for people who recognize the fundamental problems with those sites (and who think it’s insane not to give people an edit button in 2025).
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