2026-01-24 03:23:00
A week ago, I wrote a post which got the usual amount of attention (i.e. not a lot). A day later, it unexpectedly shot onto the Trending page, reached the top and stayed there. As I type this, it's (finally) disappeared onto the second page.
It wasn't the best post I've ever written and certainly not my favourite. I was curious as to why it got so much attention, but never discovered what sent it soaring. Edit: Apparently it was posted on HackerNews
I've received a lot of traffic from it (over 1100 views), but ONLY to that specific post. Hardly anyone reading it looked around the rest of the blog.
Perhaps it wasn't as interesting when they clicked through? Maybe I'd titled it poorly and it wasn't what people expected? It did receive a fair few upvotes while it sat on Trending, but that's all the engagement it seemed to generate - I received a grand total of ZERO guestbook comments or emails about it.
If I didn't have any kind of visitor statistics, I would never have known anything different was happening on my blog. And while it's nice to get upvotes, I found it left me feeling a bit empty. I wanted to know how readers actually felt after reading it.
This only serves to reinforce something that other Bear bloggers have been writing about lately. Communication is what some of us really crave, a meaningful discussion and connection with others. Someone hitting a like button doesn't satisfy that desire.
Don't strive for Trending, it will never give you genuine, long-term satisfaction. By all means enjoy it when it does happen, but don't make it your goal. Build up a regular readership and maybe you'll connect with a few people along the way.
There will be a certain irony if this post makes Trending, but if it does don't be shy - say hi! 👋🏻
2026-01-23 21:19:10
It’s no surprise that both tourists and Thai people here in Chiang Mai do it. But when you see the monks doing it as well, you kinda start questioning what the world has come to.
On the other hand, why shouldn’t monks be allowed to do it? It’s 2026, and this is how society works, monk or not.
Still, I can’t help feeling a bit baffled every time I see it. The Thai don’t seem to mind, though. They just go about their day as usual.
As a tourist from a totally different culture and part of the world, maybe I have a romanticized idea of what it means to be a monk.
“Monks eat, sleep, and meditate. But doing that, no way.”
I will probably get used to it, but I still like my romanticized view. The world would feel a little bit better if it were true.
But it’s just a dream. I have to wake up and face reality:
Even monks walk around staring at their phone.
2026-01-23 20:16:00
In ninth grade, I learned about etymologies and became obsessed with the origins of words. One I kept returning to was amare, to love, which eventually evolved into the word amateur, or the pursuit of something for the love of it. Somewhere along the way, I forgot that.
Actually, I think we all did, because, in the modern world, being an amateur became less about love and more about incompetency. We build entire systems, schools and workplaces, around making sure no one ever looked like one.
I am very good at overthinking my ideas to death. In 2020, I jotted start a blog on my tattered journal as a major goal of the year. I knew what I wanted so badly since then, to carve a space on the internet for myself. Verbatim, I’ve written: I’ll talk about my growth in a way that inspires others / help them solve a problem / provide insight so they know they’re not alone. I never started. I didn’t realize how forward I’ve pushed this idea until it reappeared into my 2021 goals. It was only in 2024 that I started Bear.
How much time have I wasted betraying myself? Reading my journal entries, I circled this question, wondering what I was so carefully avoiding. I thought it was a lack of original, profound ideas to write about (not true, there is room even for the mundane, especially for the mundane) or my flawed conviction that I must perfect my skills before I earned the right to blog.
Neither was true. I was simply too embarrassed to start from nothing. I was afraid of being perceived an amateur. I also never experienced any relief in my delay but a persistent, pang-like guilt that continued to bother me for four years. Why did I keep thinking about it, if I was so embarrassed to start?
There is a strange intimacy in being an amateur, I think. To love something so deeply and publicly be bad at it is an act of devotion. The amateur shows up without armor, metrics, and the guarantee of impressiveness; and, in doing so, preserves something so profoundly human that professionalism often erodes. In a culture obsessed with optimization and visible competence, the amateur’s devotion is radical in its simplicity. The opposite of amateurism is not professionalism, I think. It is indifference.
2026-01-23 16:52:00
Personally, I think the only way to improve the internet is by being able to turn it off and walk away like we could circa 1995. It was a place we visited not something that lived in our pocket and ran our lives 24/7. You turned the computer on, heard the modem screach, did your thing and then turn it off and left. And life carried on.
Unfortunately that’s not reality anymore. Our lives, the world, and how it continues to function are built atop the internet and there is no escaping it because it’s baked into nearly everything we do.
There is no fixing the internet now by creating new social media platforms, forums, messaging apps or even blogging sites (sorry Herman). It’s merely a bandaid over the problem that will only continue to be perpetuated until it’s last dying breath.
We need a revolution not a solution. And we need to be offline to do it.
2026-01-23 09:40:00
Some badges you can add to your site if you feel the same. Use the following code to insert it directly into your bearblog footer. Otherwise, just use basic html to place anywhere on your site.
footer::before {
content: "";
display: block;
width: 150px;
height: 120px;
margin: 2.5rem auto 1rem;
background: url("image_source.jpg") center / contain no-repeat;
opacity: 0.85;
}
Obviously change the path of the background url to wherever you saved the image to and adjust the width/height to fit your needs.
Brighter days ahead. Sláinte.
2026-01-23 05:15:00
hi hello welcome!!
i always wanted to start a blog. but when it finally came to choosing a platform i felt overwhelmed and also every platform i tried wasn't really for me. the closest was probably write.as but i eventually decided to use bear because of the community and design of the platform. before that i also considered making my own system for blogging but i gave up because i didn't feel good about it idk. i overthink too much and i guess i just started doubting myself and lost all motivation.
so.. this is my little space where i'll be talking about stuff i'm interested in and also about life and like what's happening around me. basically anything that comes to my mind.
i'll try to post in the next few days and find an interesting topic.
have a nice day/night! ʕ•ᴥ•ʔ