A while ago I discovered the website of Kening Zhu and I was immediately enamoured with the richness and depth of her website. Last week I discovered she has linked to me, finding me through Laurel Schwulst‘s interview, “a website is a sanctuary“:
I followed her links to Winnie Lim’s blog (someone else had sent her work to me, some months ago) and felt like I was reading someone’s private, articulate journal, almost like I shouldn’t be reading it.
– Kening Zhu, nourishing internet walks
I like sometimes how the internet is so wide and vast and on some days it is small and serendipitous. I also like that I was a stepping stone to someone discovering someone else’s art:
I followed Winnie’ Lim’s link to notes.art — a designer who made this video of 365 days of drawings on the Apple Notes app. what a perfect container for creativity: unexpected, low pressure, limited.
I would love to be a stepping stone more often.
Through my referral links I’ve also discovered cheapskateguides.org mentioning me in a rallying call for people to make the small internet flourish with a commitment to publishing:
In my view, one of the major problems with the small or personal Internet is the dearth of individuals who are willing to create and maintain personal spaces that they take pride in and that the rest of us want to visit… We need people who publish year after year after year. We need people like Winnie Lim, Sean Dietrich, and Emma. Instead, we get those who create the typical site on Neocities that has not been updated in 5 years and consists of only three or four pages. This is repeated over and over on other platforms and networks that are run by individuals. Consistent content produced over a period of years requires either a huge commitment, an inborn need to write just for the sake of writing, or both. A well-populated, well-cared-for small Internet is what we need in order to encourage the rest of humanity to visit frequently and support something better than our current corporate-run Internet.
– cheapskateguids.org, The Birth and Death of the Yesterweb Forum Reveal Two Important Truths
I’ve mentioned numerous times before that sometimes week after week I feel like I am publishing into a blackhole – though I do it anyway because my primary purpose of writing is to document and know myself – so it is meaningful to me that someone out there has noticed the consistency I try to make.
Due to social conditioning I can’t be myself in reality, so I try to be myself here on this website, hence I tend to write darker uncomfortable posts because I wish to express everything that I cannot express elsewhere. I do wonder often if it is the right thing to do, to air my bones dry in such a public manner. But once in a while I am reminded that perhaps it is worthwhile:
A recent journal entry by Winnie Lim has rekindled my desire to get better at telling it like it is whether I’m writing blog posts or improvising music and lyrics. I’m so in awe of her ability to express herself freely. I can indeed feel the pain – both her pain and my own.
– Joe Jenett, feel the pain
I think this world and her people try to hide too much of their shadows, but these shadows inevitably return to haunt us in sprawling, hidden, insidious ways. I still continue to believe that experiencing pain, grief, sadness, etc should not be seen as a stigma. Being able to express these emotions and have discourses about them will lead to a lighter, freer world – at least I hope.