When I first discovered blogging, I liked the idea of sharing my personal experiences. Since then, I have been documenting some or the other aspects of my life. Initially, I maintained a blog, where I documented some personal events, the reviews of books I read, and my experiments with different technologies, software applications, and tools. I liked the experience of sharing it with the wider world. The joy of finding my posts being read by people around the world was immense.
Then came the era of social networking. The almost universal use of social networks changed my blogging habits. I started sharing on social media, wrote my opinions on different events, shared photographs, and wrote some viewpoints on the articles that I read and felt worth sharing. During all these years, I have made my viewpoints on a plethora of topics. My social media posts may narrate the evolution of some of them. Anybody going through my social media posts could understand my reading habits, the blogs, and the newspapers that I frequently read as well as the topics, both technical and social that I talk about.
Somehow, I was inspired by the openness and transparency of the internet. However, over the years, some social media companies became walled gardens, taking away with them the very foundation of the open web.
Personal Blogging
After years of reflection, I started maintaining a personal blog where I could freely share thoughts and lifelog personal events, inspired by the concept of the quantified self.
Merging Personal & Community
My activities spread across different websites. I found it difficult to separate personal and community activities, realizing that the individual cannot be separated from the collective.
Writing as Healing
During melancholic moments and existential crises, writing and photography helped immensely. Documenting those experiences enables self-reflection and growth.
Expanded Documentation
Beyond books, I now share films, documentaries, series, music, museums visited, and countries traveled — tracking how I evolved over the years.
Version Control Life
Managing my blog with version control, frequently timestamping my thought process. The historical timeline reveals my life's journey through difficult moments overcome.
If I am here, it is because of thousands of people who open up their personal life experiences on the internet, sharing them with unknown persons, but unknowingly empowering a lot of people. This empowerment has been made possible, thanks to the open nature of the web. The stories on the web have helped a lot of people in understanding that they are not the only ones going through some issues. The web has also made it possible to share the lessons that we learned during these years from various personal experiences.
Open Questions
Software Improvement
What if I share the way I use software menus or frequently used options? Will it help developers create specialized tools tailored to individual needs?
Better Recommendations
By sharing reading habits online, can communities develop better recommendation tools that open up wider worlds instead of creating filter bubbles?
Health Solutions
Will sharing health information (publicly or anonymously) help provide better health solutions for future generations?
Personal Boundaries
Several questions remain open about the boundaries of personal informatics and the multiple possible interpretations from around the world.
Some of my reading lists are available online through open bookmarks. Yet, I feel that I could share a lot to improve the software. What if I share the way I use software menus or the frequently used options. Will it help the software developers to develop specialized tools for me? By sharing my reading habits online, will the communities be able to develop better recommendation and personalization tools that do not create filter bubbles but open up a much wider world? Will sharing my health information (publicly or anonymously) will help provide better health solutions for future generations?
Several questions are still open regarding the boundaries of personal informatics. Documenting myself will help me to understand myself better and help others potentially, but it will also mean that I am leaving myself to multiple possible and unexpected interpretations from around the world.