Welcome to my digital yet arid (for now!) garden. I hope I can water it regularly.
Why did I start this?
The idea of having my own little space in the digital world along many other people strikes in me feelings similar to those of when I enamor the idea of having my own plot of land. Having something that is “fully” under your control and that you care deeply enough to share with others. While in the real world you would share seeds, fruits, herbs and the like, here is a place - more of a vehicle, actually - to share my ideas, thoughts, confessions (when I feel bold), and concerns about the real world (and maybe the digital one too). A place like so many other small and personal places scattered across this World Wide Web. It can feel refreshing to meander in this digital world, and find other people’s small gardens. There is a sense of community and independence, which is a rare commodity especially these days unless you detach yourself significantly from a society which, at times, seems to devour the individual and the community just to spin the wheels and gears of an endless and purposeless machine. The idea of building such a website had already been on my mind, but it was this article from a journalist of Fumaça on “Small Web” that really brought me to action. Checking Indie Web and the essay “A Brief History & Ethos of the Digital Garden” only solidified the reasons for doing it. I am still unsure how I can build my community in this new world, but I know that only through exploring I can start moving towards that reality. Real or digital, the rules of engagement stay very much the same.
I understand that I do not have full control. That is true in many things in life, but even more true for everyone’s digital footprint. You expose yourself to all neighbors, humans and bots, invited or not. I also do not control from end-to-end all the tools and technologies that make possible for this small website to come to life: at the time of this writing, much of the software that I use to is open-source (but also proprietary) - Obsidian to write and create content for the webpages; Quartz to compile all this content into a usable website; Docker to run software containers for the webserver nginx and the encrypted tunnel provided by Cloudfare to point my website to the domain the-soil-is-sentient.garden in a secure way without being overrun by hordes of bots and ill-intended agents. For all the effort that one or a community can put into building their own part of the world, at some point one will trade its independence for practicality. I guess it is at this level that I have decided to draw the line. Hopefully I - and many other people whose steps I followed - chose the right moment to let someone else take the wheel. We will see.