The medium is the message

Suddenly I was struck by a desire to start a blog. Then I remembered that I do,in fact, have a blog. And I used to write things the GooglePlus thing, which still somehow exists. But the blog is in Polish, which is my primary language, and I wanted to write something in English for once for a number of reasons. Or at least two reasons? Maybe three. That is still a number. And G+ is, well, not that it is connected to my primary identify, since this post is only marginally less so, but it somehow flows in the wrong direction. I don’t mind someone I know finding what I write if the look for it, but I do not necessarily want them to stumble upon it accidentally.

That considered, I started thinking about creating a new blog. As many things are, this became of confusion of choices. I don’t want a full blown blog for this. I just want to write words, without having to worry about configuration, templates, banners or Goddess forbid my own hosting solutions. I considered Blogger for a moment, which could in principle be left with everything at default, but it was a bit to Google connected, I suppose. Most of the rest of blog hosts mentioned on my admittedly not very in depth search I have either never heard of or they looked like they would required to much effort unrelated to what I wanted.

This left two things: Tumblr and Medium. Alas, Tumblr is a microblogging service, and I have a tendency to not even get close to my point in several hundred words, which from what I have seen makes for cumbersome reading. And it is perhaps by structure too social. Or maybe I rejected it due to negative aura absorbed through cultural osmosis. The whole reblog to reply thing seems strange, anyway.

I have created an account on Medium. Obviously, otherwise no one would be reading this. I have not yet decided if I will write anything more than this, but I wanted to at least write why I hesitated for quite a while about this.

There are no, or at least nowhere that I could find, clearly stated expectations about writing on Medium.

It seems mechanically very easy, although I suppose I will find out once I actually post this. And the uniform presentation is actually ideal for the sort of personal blog I would like to write, which is about writing word to get them out of my head rather than building a personal brand or anything like that.

But the whole branding seems very, let’s use the word, professional, to the point where I hesitate to sully it with my stream of consciousness nonsense. There does not appear to be a place for the long tail of blogs, which perhaps very few might want to read. At the same time, there appears to be no barrier to entry, unless one appears after publication. Which would be mean.

I have tried to search for anything about this, but I found mostly people arguing or complaining about how Medium as a platform makes it impossible to build a personal brand, which I don’t care about. The page itself has no guidance other than purely mechanical one. And the statement that “anybody can write”. But should anybody write?

Is this even something I should worry about? Perhaps not. But I have always worried about social contexts to perhaps an unhealthy degree, even on the internet. Is it too much too ask about a clear statement of intent? (Which hopefully isn’t in some obvious place I haven’t looked, because wouldn’t that be embarrassing.)

I have mentioned above the reason why I wanted to write something in English, and streams of consciousness are all very well, but I have moved them here so as to not completely sink what I wanted to be the central point of the post.

In no particular order, reason the first, write in English just for practice. I read in English a lot, but don’t really use it actively much. Which probably shows in this very text. Reason the second, these days I do actually read in English more than I do in my native Polish, which could make certain things easier to express, even if I mess up basic grammar or even more likely some meaning nuance. Reason the third, there is certain clarity in trying to express oneself in a foreign language. There were even some brain studies about it I think.

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