Writing

The Ideal Life

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Lately, I’ve been thinking of the optimal lifestyle and how to get the best out of life.

How can I better my existence?

An ideal lifestyle is one you have to define for yourself. So if I wanted to focus on creativity and photography, I will need to build this up for myself. Surround myself with the proper tools and investing into this lifestyle. I currently have a great home office, but I need a studio in which to set up and host portraiture somehow. Something simple, minimal and easily accessible. For now, it isn’t feasible, but it is certainly a goal of mine. Truth be told, I really want to double down on this idea, but unsure of how to progress towards it.

I need to be active. To create, act, explore and this involves time outside my home office, whatever that looks like such as- on the streets, at the pub, hiking, road trips, etc. I am at my happiest when I am out and about with a camera, trying to maximize fitness at the same time. Everything improves for me with this, including more thinking, more problems-solving and more idea creations. The more mobile for me, the better.

Now and in the future, I need to invest in myself. I can invest in the future, but what about right now? What can I do to make my world better today? What can I attempt or pursue today that will pay off immediately, as well as the future?

I must become more focused on the self and prioritize my needs and wants before it is too late. I’ve been focused on pleasing others that I may be missing out. Time to make myself and my creativity a priority.

For years, I have been sharing and publishing my craft and my words to the WWW, with varying results. In the past, there was interaction and engagement but with the invention of social media, the interaction has been limited. Weird how that works – social media without the socializing. I need to find a way to bridge the gap and start interacting with others again. There are three ways I have created here that can do just that – subscribe to the newsletter (see below), subscribe to the RSS feed and email (say hello@chrisdenbow.website)

Homework

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“Being a writer is like having homework every night for the rest of your life.”

– Lawrence Kasdan

This quote could also be used for any hobby endeavor we choose such as photography, crochet, micro electronics, Ham radio, etc.

A hobbyist is constantly researching techniques, going over best practices and learning how to apply them. You don’t just sit down at your keyboard and start cranking out paragraphs without research on the topic. You learn to see the world through the lens of your hobby and wonder how your craft fits into it, or what you can glean from the world to use it. A hobbyist is always shooting, writing, sewing, tinkering and noticing. A photographer is constantly tilting their head looking for angles and composition or color coordinating. Then act on it. A writer is frequently attaching verbal descriptions to a situation and then document it.

“To write, I first must world”

– Laurel Schwulst

Any experience that can be seen as possibly mundane suddenly has meaning, such as grocery shopping, sitting in traffic or walking through the streets. This means they are alert, focused, awakened and deliberately taking their findings to be applied later as homework. Though this homework is not graded, it does help advance our self-induced education, and we are all the better for it.

Technical Issues

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If you think technology will solve your problems then you don’t understand technology – and, you don’t understand your problems.

Laurie Anderson

Find the best tool for a specific job and stick with it. This is better said than done for me since I enjoy trying all the new shiny tools to play with out there. I am getting better at this and narrowed them down to a select few for writing, post-process photography, etc.

Take Charge

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“Nothing about the Internet is fixed, permanent, or inevitable. It is malleable, shape-shifting, and constantly evolving. And it increasingly comes with more responsibility and risks for guarding our own data and taking charge of distributing our words and images.”

EI Skyers

This sums up nicely what I’ve been referring to when it comes to owning your platform. Build a blog, delete your social media account(s), dump Google mail and get your personalized e-mail address, and distribute your words and images your way.

Plain Text

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Just about everything I write digitally-  blog posts, to-do’s, notes, journal, code, thoughts, plans, etc get drafted in text format (.txt) 

These are an extension of me, my digitized, quantified, extended memory of organized thoughts. I use them often for research, reference, and a log. 

So you see, they are important to me. They are a log of my digitized life. Text files are reliable, long-lasting and flexible. Here are some examples how this is the case:

Portability

I’ve had text files around since I upgraded from a manual typewriter to a word processor (personal computers were too expensive for me in college.) Text files have been around for me since 1996. Those text files were backed up on 3.5” floppy disks from the word processor to Windows 3.1 to Linux to thumb drives to Android and finally to my Apple devices here in 2022. Twenty six years old!

Every device I’ve owned, including the long obsolete devices, and devices that have not been manufactured yet can read/write/edit plain text. It is ubiquitous, everywhere. 

Non-Proprietary

Along comes an industry-leading company that says you should use their software, that just so happens to have it’s own unique format. You either buy the software or subscribe to the service to keep your documents in their format. Now you’re locked in. Boom. Your notes just lost it’s portability, flexibility and freedom for the price of “features and convenience.” What happens when that company goes belly-up? Your hard work is trapped in an unusable format. Your writing will outlive them. It will hopefully outlive you. Proprietary software is not an option. Plain text is universal, non-commercial and will be for another few decades. 

Non-Internet-Dependent

No connection, no problem. Accessing your writing when you need it is best. 

Independent

No need for Microsoft Office, Adobe Photoshop, Evernote, OneNote, Google, etc etc etc. Sure, I could make the documents prettier with Word, but then again, I am locked in and rendered useless. A basic text editor and plain text files are plenty. So is a pen and paper. 

Convertible 

Plain text is flexible enough to convert to other formats as needed such as Markdown files, HTML, JSON etc. 

Final Note

Portable, non-proprietary, offline, independent, convertible, minimal, flexible and future-proof. Plain text will continue to be read for the next few decades. Plain isn’t boring. 

A Few Thoughts On…

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  1. Creativity and imagination needs to be constantly fed.
  2. Reading is an anytime, anywhere pastime
  3. Slow down.
  4. Excuses delay the inevitable.
  5. Make time for good conversation.
  6. Apply what you know.
  7. Chase the knowledge.
  8. Organize your desk.
  9. Make yourself so good that they don’t want to let you go.
  10. You are only as good to them as your last quarter.
  11. Do or don’t.
  12. Try.
  13. Your best effort wants to come out. Give it a go.
  14. Essentialism > minimalism
  15. Personal development > formal education.
  16. Learning > formal education
  17. Moderation in all things (sugar, salt, social media, alcohol, spending)
  18. Let the tools do their job. Your brain can take care of the rest.
  19. Pen to paper > fingers to keyboard.
  20. What is your origin story? Document your progress.
  21. Change is good.
  22. Willingness to change is even better.
  23. Laughing is a habit-forming drug.
  24. No one told you because they didn’t know either.
  25. Asking is free.
  26. Doing > over-analyzing how to do it.
  27. Your thoughts are clouded and stuck in high fructose corn syrup.
  28. Youth is a feeling, not an age.
  29. Call your loved ones.
  30. Forgive yourself.
  31. Forgive them.
  32. Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, and faithfulness > whatever else you are doing instead.

Ulysses Update

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Ulysses 26 update looks great. Now with custom fonts and better support for accessing my web server (meaning I can connect to it again. Will I re-up or stick with iA Writer?

Unfortunately I run into an error where I cannot post to the Micro page from either Ulysses or iA Writer so now it comes down to use the pay and use or subscription based software?

Just Do It

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“We learn by doing.”

This is the way you master your hobby, by getting on and doing it. Learn, practice, re-learn and practice some more. This goes for writing, sketching, photography, painting, or everything else. You don’t get good without practice, keep your head down and move onward.

There are no shortcuts to becoming a good photographer. Just go out and take photos. You don’t need a specific lens or a new camera because you cannot buy skill. It does not matter whether you share images to your website or Instagram because all the “likes” will not help you improve. If you want to take good photos, you have to take numerous photos first. The majority will be crap, and that’s okay. I’ve come back home with maybe 5 usable images and been happy.

With your writing, it does not matter what software application you use, what blogging platform or newsletter publisher or what type of personal computing device you do it on. If the goal is to become a better writer, then just write. A lot of it will be crap, and that’s okay too. I’ve cranked out possibly 5 good articles a month and been happy.

Consistency and constantly. If it isn’t worth the time and effort to put into it, then perhaps it isn’t relevant for you.

You cannot buy in and expect dramatic results with your new gear. The gear doesn’t make you better. Only you can make yourself look good by trusting the process. It’s time to go out there and get it.

I Did It Again

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Here’s something about me: I’ll tweak and twerk on something until it’s molded into something I’m happy with. And just when I’ve got it down to what I want, I switch to something entirely different.

Example- I’ve been working with a fantastic site setup here in the past so much that it got to the point where all I had to do is…write. So I’ll write for a time and then I would tweak the web site again instead.

I can’t help it, because it’s fun. The tinkering allows me to think and do it just for the hell of it. Imagine a chef creating something from a recipe but in reverse order or adding/subtracting ingredients as needed. That’s where I am at.

These past few months I think I have finally settled on a solution I am proud of here. It’s functional, it looks great and everything makes sense. For the first time in a long time, I am content.

However, I do reserve the right to tweak and enhance the current set up.

Just for the hell of it.

I Want This

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There are many things in my life that I don’t need. I don’t need half the technology I have, nor most of online services that I pay for. This includes the hosting for my website. I don’t need it, but it does serve a purpose deeper than the amount it costs me each year and gives me value.

My website(s) have been up for more than two decades (learning from a file error mistake, the earliest post I still have is from 2013) and it has been through various iterations. The most recent of which was going back to a personal web server host. The benefits and hours devoted to the setup and install outweigh the costs.

This website has been many things over the years such as, attempted portfolios, business ventures (photography) and a lot of design coding, but still provides an outlet for me. In reality, this website provides very little to me, it doesn’t receive accolades or followers as much as it used to, my life would remain unchanged if I didn’t have this outlet, but I still want one.

This is a journal, a hobby for sure, but writing gives me something that nothing else provides. I love networking with people and I enjoy journaling. Long form and short form both help me document my life as it is currently. Sometimes other people join me here and that is fantastic. Just because I receive nothing in return (on the surface), it doesn’t mean that this doesn’t have value. I believe everyone needs to have their own space on the world wide web.

No one or their website, should focus on follower count, advertising, tracking or page views. You won’t recoup your costs, let’s be honest. This is a personal website and are beholden to no one. You publish what you want, when you want and how you need to.

I don’t need this but I want this.

Writing on the WWW

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Own your website. It’s important because you control the format now and forever if you want to. No social media because that isn’t yours. Your social media account is just renting space until you are evicted.

Buy a domain name, choose a blog host, install WordPress blogging software on it. Once you are about 50% content with the way your own site looks, move on to long form and short form writing, photos, drawings, whatever you fancy… because it is yours. Leave the final 50% for slow, and incremental enhancements along the way. If you’re wondering what style or format you should write, write as though if you were writing a friend in an email.

Categorize and tag your posts for future reference and easy search on a topic you wrote 5 years ago. You’ll thank yourself later.

While going through the downloaded archives of my old Twitter account, I realized several things which are going to shape the way I write on the web in the future.

The mundane rituals of the past will now seem fascinating in 10 years time, because you see that things have changed and have also stayed the same. Such as living in a different state(s), or you’re now with someone else. Taking a moment to capture your life as it is now helps nostalgia down the road.

2006–10–25 19:37:06 +0000 My obligatory first tweet here on TWTTR.

2007–12–07 03:42:50 +0000 still can’t get Photoshop working and now I can’t open the RAW images I took from my new Nikon D200 camera. @#$%@*&

2012–01–17 21:30:40 +0000 Relocating to Tulsa in T-minus 12 hours.

2012–12–07 13:50:58 +0000 Holy shit I turned 40 today.

Twitter: @mojodenbow

Those tweets are well and good for documenting the times but how much more valuable are they on your own website? Social media isn’t forever, they come, go and most will take all the effort you put into it with them. I can look back fondly on my brief flirtation with both Linux and Windows operating systems, or a photo of my daughter from 2009 easily.

JANUARY 1, 2013 / CHRIS / INFODENBOW

HAPPY GNU YEAR

I’ve taken on another project that involves diving deep inside the Linux operating itself. For a few years I’ve been using a dual boot hybrid desktop using Ubuntu and Windows 7. I’ve added the Fedora distribution inside a virtual machine inside Ubuntu and deleted the Windows partition. Oh, and GNU = “Gnu’s Not Unix”

HAPPY GNU YEAR post from 01.01.2013, ChrisDenbow.com

So I continue generating text, photos, doodles and anything else I want. For me. This website is a kinetic journal and I plan to continue doing this right to the end. I suggest everyone create their own website here on the WWW.