This is the week that I officially launched the website, and now that I have this extraordinary tool/platform/medium at my complete disposal, what I need to get accustomed to is that I no longer need to be putting my most sharable thoughts up on social media, and treating Facebook as a kind of blog by default. Part of the thinking behind making this site a reality is that many of the habits I've already developed related to sharing content simply need to be redirected toward a destination of my own making, where I have control over what they are, how they're used, and especially who owns them. Achieving a balance between putting content on IG or FB, as opposed to putting it here, is probably going to play a significant role in my activity over the next weeks, and just by making a blog entry that welcomes people to the website (to the extent that's what I'm doing) feels like moving to a new neighborhood or starting a new job, and taking it upon oneself that making friends involves regularly stepping outside the comfort zone, at least until a set a better bearing on my surroundings.
Did I mention that I'm also a bit terrified, in this sense that it feels like hanging my shingle out with my name on it for the first time, with all the accompanying exposure? Of course I'm thrilled that hundreds of people have already trooped through in the first days, but I also have a corresponding anxiety about being outed as a slob, or a snob, or else too unprofessional or too self-serving. Putting up my full(-ish) exhibition history for folks to wander around inside of also invites them to draw their own conclusions, which in turn raises the likelihood that all of it is going to be publicly revealed as a colossal, dreadful mistake. I guess the takeaway from such feelings is that every new enterprise comes with its own variation on Fear of Failure, and its doppelgänger, Fear of Success. This stage of the process is about bravely wandering around my new digs, shining metaphorical flashlights into dark corners -- are there such things on a website? -- and clearing out metaphorical cobwebs, and just tinker away at it endlessly until I feel it resembles what I always my website to be for the many years I've been dreaming for this moment to arrive.
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