I thought about this some more.

It was more or less an accident since I was just daydreaming and then I thought about [how a blog post is a very long and complex search query to find fascinating people](https://www.henrikkarlsson.xyz/p/search-query).

That in and of itself is no surprise since this might have been the best blog post I have ever read so I've been thinking about this one a lot. But this time, I thought about it _after_ I had this discussion with you. Where I basically told you how I don't want people to be interested in me - at least sometimes.

I still remember how I felt the true potential of an own blog after I read this post. So far I only thought of it as my own space in the internet. Where I can share whatever I want, in as much details as I want so I can learn as much as I want at the same time and anyone who is interested can show up and simply send sats or/and leave comments. So I can potentially learn even more since I may never get the perspective that some random person immediately has on some things. That already sounded pretty good.

But using blog posts as a way to establish relationships? To get to know people? To not only read single comments from randoms who then disappear into the void, never to be seen again? But actually have a consistent audience? 

> To grow relationships that depend, in part, on shared history, on people knowing what you're about. The stuff that civilization and our primate brains are built on.

**And thanks to SN, I already had access to such an audience, I just didn't realize it yet.** Before I read that post, SN was just a way for me to say that I am done with this post now since if you never publish a blog post, are you ever done?

The best part though was that I already started to write blog posts when I read that post. So I already got a taste of how fulfilling it can be to write down stuff that you learned and then someone might comment on it. Even if it's literally just "[why didn't you use nftables](https://stacker.news/items/221840)"; in some way completely diminishing my efforts to explain the fundamentals of `iptables` as well as I could, lol. But humans are going to be humans, right? I just found it funny and it was indeed a legit question. :)

And it also immediately showed the point about different perspectives. I was so focused on understanding `iptables` with its flow of chains etc. that I just completely forgot that `nftables` existed and then this person shows up and reminds me :)

But I think I am losing track here (I am also writing this comment for quite a while now, lol). What I want to say is that I seem to have no problem sharing and discussing stuff that I am interested in. **But how dare someone be interested in me**!

But I guess it's related to my fear of sharing too much information about me and regretting it one day. Online as well as offline. Even though online it might be for other reasons than offline.

But to be honest, I think I realized, I would regret sharing too little, too. Indeed, I have been regretting it my whole life already, lol

So the natural choice is to pick the thing that I will regret less in the long run :)

And I think you nailed it here:

> Being a transient rando on the internet as ephemeral as a sprouted dandelion is good opsec, but an intolerable way to live for almost everyone.

So thank you very much for the discussion, and also for the link to the blog post since [turns out, that one was from you, too](https://stacker.news/items/304309), lol

Being known.  Being able to grow relationships that depend, in part, on shared history, on people knowing what you're about.  The stuff that civilization and our primate brains are built on.

elvismercury

oracle

Manifold | The largest prediction market platform

TonyGiorgio

Yeah, it's a mixed bag.  There's something lost when you're known and part of something, but way more is gained.  But you can ease into it, the internet is good that way.

It's basically another variant of the reputation conversation I was having with somebody on SN recently and cannot unearth now.