one year of saikyo central
01-03-25
On January 13th, it will have been a whole year since I've started this site. Alongside the new year and my own birthday this week, January is definitely the month of milestones for me. There's a lot to look towards in the future but before I do any of that, I'd like to refect on my time in the indie web.
A year ago, I was in the same position you'd find on many personal sites' manifestos: exhausted and dissatisfied with the same 5 social media apps that had taken over the Internet. I was worn down by the algorithms that would constantly try to soak up my attention and bored with the utter lack of customization. Alongside I didn't want to deal with personal branding, having my real life identity tied to my actions online. Looking for a place where I could just write what I please while staying as anonymous as I wanted, I discovered the indie web and specifically neocities. After lurking for weeks, I finally got off my ass and made my own site a few days after my birthday.
Without a doubt making a website was the best decision I made in 2024. As a disillusioned graduate, working on this personal project reminded me why I enjoyed coding in the first place. And, in the many slumps I had this year where I just couldn't bring myself to do anything, this web project would be one of the few things to snap me back to productivity.
And that speaks nothing to all the cool people I've met on this space. I've found and become fans of passionate essayists, musicians, and artists here on the indie web; and through this journey, I unexpectedly met and befriended some awesome people. Though the year has been rough, having this personal site to dump deep and dumb thoughts alike has been a boon to my mental health; I really do think everyone could benefit from a personal site as opposed to an Instagram or Twitter profile.
To everyone who's followed this site, left comments on my profile, and answered my silly polls, thank you for reading and hopefully enjoying anything I've put down. I intend to keep going and hope you keep going too, because I'm a big fan of the stuff I've seen on here! Whether you create or lurk, interacting with these indie sites keeps alive the dream of what the Internet should be! For humans, by humans! Keep it up!
(*￣▽￣)b
I'll keep it a buck fifty, I'm not exactly the proudest of myself overall this year. I do think I could've done a lot better but I also fixate on my mistakes too much so let's celebrate some of the good things I did this year.
Besides this website, I can say I am employed so that's good! Through my job I have improved my social skills. I also used social media less this year and don't scroll on TikTok or Twitter anymore. That's a massive improvement compared to the doomscrolling I used to do for hours at the beginning of the year. And I managed to work on moving a lot of my workflow towards FOSS and CLI applications which is something I've always wanted to do.
With that said, I got some New Year's Resolutions I'm gonna try for. Some of them are too specific and personal to share, but here are some broader ones I feel comfortable writing down here.
- Smaller updates - For this website, there's actually a lot I want to do but end up saving for big updates done all at once. This year, I instead want to dripfeed bite-sized updates more consistently. The kinda stuff I can just work on in a quick hour between other responsibilities.
- Less Youtube - I always get anxious watching movies or reading books due to the feeling I'm wasting my time; but then I'd waste that time anyway watching slop recommended to me on YouTube. If I'm gonna "procrastinate," I might as well do it consuming more meaningful art. So this year gonna try to consume less Youtube, more books and movies.
- Play more old games - I used to be an emulator gamer in high school when I didn't have money and that's how I discovered some of my favorite classic games. But since getting my own disposable income, I've fallen for temptations of the coveted Steam Sale and mostly play on there. This year, I wanna spend less money, go back, and rediscover some classics again through emulation. Shorter games with worse graphics, hell yeah!
- Move to self-hosting - As much as I appreciate neocities, I do want to eventually move the site over to my own server. Especially with the recent news of possible AI integration. Be sure to follow my RSS feed if you want to stay posted when I eventually leave neocities.
Of course, you gotta be careful with resolutions. Set your expectations too high and you might be setting yourself to crash and burn, so I'm playing fast and loose with them. It's mostly mindset stuff, but with that said I do have one main thing I want for this year.
I really hope to end off this year different than when it started. Not better or worse, just in a different space. I hope to read back this blogpost and feel unlike I feel now. But that's a long ways to go.
This year is gonna be a doozy but we're all gonna make it. Cheers to the New Year!
