Today marks 13 years since I decided “fuck it, I need a website” and registered the domain name xadara.com. In the past I’ve gone over the history of the site — how it started as a site for a music game related personal project, became more of a “general purpose” blog with some static, outdated as heck content on it before finally becoming the active every other day or so monstrosity of thoughts and opinions if has become in the past, oh, 7 years or so.
It’s a site which has outlived quite a few of its contemporaries and survived quite a bit — in fact, at this stage I’m certain the site may well be older, if only by maybe a year, than some of the people which visit it. It certainly is older than their maturity levels would match, at least!
I can’t say it’s been all fun and games — that this has been something I’ve loved doing. In fact, quite the opposite much of the time — the conflict that arises from simply expressing a contrasting opinion on something which, in the long run, is insignificant but still somehow made important by the tech / gaming / whatever scene is incredibly tiring. Let’s be clear that I do want this site to be a fun project, and it can be much of the time. However, I’m not going to ignore something I wish to talk about and feel strongly upon, and if sharing those thoughts brings conflict then so be it. I’m not the one going into someone else’s space trying to start conflict I’m in my own zone doing my own thing and they come to me. I got to remember that sometimes.
Right, the “fun” though, that is why I do this. It is fun, and I do genuinely enjoy getting my thoughts and opinions out there in a way that goes beyond the temporal nature of social media — how it can be here today, gone tomorrow and you never truly “own” your place on it. Here my thoughts can live their own lives, if you’ll allow me the poetic liberty, away from the constraints of this or that social platforms rules, their toxic user bases, what have you. This is my slice of the internet, and I’ll be damned if someone else is going to tell me how to use it (barring the hosting company, of course.)
13 years though. It really has been a long time and again, it is wearing at me. I need to change some things in my writing process and try to find a better balance (and a better way to produce solid content without it taking me seemingly all day) between sitting here typing and everything else I’m working on. My life has changed quite a bit in 13 years and, in many ways, has in the past 7 years as well, but at the same time many things have stayed the same, and I’ve gone back to old hobbies (like playing guitar and bass) as something to truly enjoy and occupy my time with — even at the cost of getting things written for this site.
It’s a labor of love, of habit, one that I may do better if I let it just die, but I just can’t bring myself to actually do. I guess this website and I are in it for the long haul, so to speak. Ah well, it can’t be all bad, right? I have fun with this, right? Right?
Ah well. Here’s to another 13 years of being myself! More to come, as always.
