I’m often surprised by how many of the pastimes I enjoyed as a child have come back later into my life later. When I was young, I went through a phase where I enjoyed writing poetry—a few years ago I started writing songs. My early interest in Astronomy and Astrophysics is a big part of why I’m currently majoring in Physics. And of course, after years of not writing hardly at all, I suddenly find myself blogging on a regular basis.
I never really chose to stop writing, I just didn’t feel like it was worthwhile at the time. Even now in 2023, I don’t really feel like a lot of people are reading blogs. Journalism seems to be making a small comeback, so I hope that’s a sign that perhaps I could make it as a writer in some way, but at the end of the day I’m just writing with no real purpose behind it aside from getting better at writing.
I suppose the thing that really makes it weird is that for years I didn’t do hardly anything without considering how I could potentially monetize it or at the very least make some marketable content out of it. When I did my old YouTube channel, I would change up the kinds of videos I’d do every couple of months in hopes that I’d burst through whatever ceiling was holding my content back. However, at the end of the day, all this focus on creating content for the broadest possible audience ended up killing any joy I got out of making videos to begin with.
I think that’s why I enjoy writing now. While there isn’t much volume on a WordPress blog, I’ve never known how many viewers any of the blogs or sites I visited got anyway, so I’ve got nothing to compare it to. I’ve got thousands upon thousands of examples of videos performing beyond my wildest dreams, so even now I have a hard time releasing videos on YouTube or TikTok without looking at the double to triple-digit view counts with a bit of dismay. Even the new series of vlogs I’m doing on my personal channel which I promised I “wouldn’t pay attention to the views” on, I can’t help subconsciously opening up the YouTube creator app to see where my latest video is on views.
In a way, writing is one of the few things I can do to that feel disconnected from my internet life. Between social media, YouTube videos, TikToks, and every other distraction on the internet, it can be hard to get away from all the noise. Somehow or other, writing seems to do that for me. For whatever reason, when I get into it, writing seems to allow me to tune out all the background noise and distractions my computer has to offer as I get lost in my thoughts coming out as fast as I can type them.
I may never become a professional writer. I may never finish the novel I’m thinking of or become the successful journalist or science communicator I’m hoping to be. This blog may never surpass single-digit views, but at the end of the day, that’s not what it’s here for. For the first time in a long time, I feel like I’m doing something purely for my own enjoyment, and that’s a feeling which makes it all worth it.
Vinnie Harned's Blog 