This site is (likely) my digital garden.

It's an ever-changing space where I store my writings, projects, thoughts, internet oddities, failed dreams and new hopes.

Why I started From Jason

I want this ~~blog~~ digital garden to provide value to you, the reader, and me, the curator / writer. It's a goal of mine that I'll wite about in future notes.

This ~~blog~~ digital garden / wiki / notebook is my vehicle for writing about my passions and interests, without worrying whether or not I'm sticking to my niche. I'd also love to free myself of perfectionist expectations and just write.

My first attempt at a blog had a travel niche (with a vlog to boot). I quickly realized I needed to travel way more to write a whole blog about it. And even if I were a proper digital nomad, I didn't always want to write about traveling.

Then, I pivoted to JasonDotGov— a blog/newsletter about technology & politics and where the two intersect. I loved the concept and believed I could write extensively about “politech” and provide a unique point of view. But, again, I had other topics I wanted to explore in my writing. Having a niche blog made me question what I should and shouldn't post. The topics I wrote about gave me a sense of pressure to be perfect in my tone and delivery. Often, I would freeze and post nothing as a result.

With From Jason, I finally decided to afford myself some creative flexibility and ditch the niche (sort of). I recently stumbled on the concept of digital gardens which has provided me with a strong framework and permission to write more freely.

From Jason is has three distinct “areas” that live on subdomains, plus the homepage which lives on the primary domain (where you're reading from now).

notebook.fromjason.xyz: Here, I'll post about everything and anything. However, I suspect there will be recurring themes: Technology, Design, Politics, Curated Resources, and Internet Culture. I expect to create a category system for the notebook, each with its own set of editorial expectations. More on that soon.
stories.fromjason.xyz: Here, I'll post my short stories and flash fiction. For a long while, I wrote stories in secret that would break down in the second act and then left to rot in my drafts. I'm ready to get hurt again.
freelance.fromjason.xyz: Here, I'll post guides, resources, and musings related to freelancing with a leftist & ADHD slant. I've been a freelancer for nearly a decade. I have a wealth of knowledge I'd love to share with year-one freelancers; things I wish I knew when I first started.

And another thing

I chose Write.as for my blog's platform because it's light-weight and part of the decentralized fediverse.

I want to move away from centralized social media owned by petulant billionaires, and toward the internet we envisioned in the early 2000s— open, decentralized, and privacy-focused. I think we make better art under these conditions.

AdSense, influencer sponsorship deals, and search engine optimization (SEO) destroyed art on the internet. Not to suggest that what I'm making here is high art, or that I'm against getting paid. Just that I want this blog to be more than optimized content for search engines and Fortune 500 companies.

Take a look at the state of Google's search results. Every site on the front page is drawn out to maximize the number of ad impressions. Scrolling through the author's entire life story (and multiple ads) to get to a pork tonkatsu recipe is a hellish experience.

Maybe this is an “old man yells at cloud” rant, but, I'm right! Right?

Algorithms push every creative thing we share on the internet into a niche. We must optimize for keywords, speak to a target audience, and find trending topics. Blah, blah, blah. Not to knock anyone who enjoys that kind of stuff. It's just not for me.

I'm tired of making content for technocrats. It's soul-crushing. I just want to create what I want to create, you know? If that means fewer eyes or fumbled sponsorship opportunities, then fine.

That doesn't mean repeated themes won't naturally arise. Just that it won't all necessarily fit neatly into a greater content strategy. Unless it does. I don't know. Listen, the point is I don't want to make any commitments on it. I just want to write.

Anyway, I'd still very much like your validation, internet stranger. Thank you for reading. Seriously though, I appreciate you taking the time to read this. It means a lot.

• • • • • • From Jason