I started this blog in August 2011 as a place to post a eulogy. Fifteen years and over 5,000 posts later, it’s no longer one thing. It’s a system that does several jobs at once — exposes me to material I wouldn’t otherwise read, forces a third pass on anything that catches my attention, makes me decide what’s actually worth keeping, and gives me an archive to come back to when I’ve forgotten what I once knew.
This thread is about why I keep doing it. Not as advice — I have no idea whether what works for me would work for you — but as the working-out of a practice that has shaped how I think for over a decade. The blog isn’t precious. It’s messy. I work with the garage door up. The thread is sequenced for someone wondering whether it’s still worth doing this kind of thing.
Working with the garage door up
constantine.name — October 2021
Open with the metaphor that anchors everything else. Growing up with a garage means you know what it’s like to throw open a door and let the neighbors saunter up. “Turns out, that’s literally ‘showing your work.'” The blog isn’t a finished product on display. It’s the workbench, with the door open. If you know what I’m talking about, you can hear that door opening.
Take some time to reflect
constantine.name — December 2022
The origin and what it became. “This blog started initially as a place for me to post a eulogy, and then it grew to serve many more purposes. It’s now solidly a way for me to reflect, and to work with the garage door up.” The blog is the forcing-function for daily discovery and reflection — not because it’s required, but because nothing else in my life makes me do it.
Should I keep blogging?
constantine.name — September 2022
The four functions, named. Exposure, learning, integration, writing — “All of that goes into feeding my personal growth and priming my curiosity.” I ask myself this question at a frequency approaching every minute. The honest answer: “It doesn’t feel like stopping is realistically an option.”
Thoughts on Conversation
constantine.name — August 2022
Different channels for different purposes. The blog stays messy and exploratory; polished work goes elsewhere. “Here on the blog things are messy as I’m working with garage door up. There’s a lot of discovery and reflection happening here.” Knowing what each channel is for is what keeps any of them from becoming everything.
The library
constantine.name — May 2022
The archive as the rest of the system. “I regularly reread these blog posts myself to make sure the thoughts still look reasonable after some time sitting on the digital shelf.” The blog isn’t only for the reader. It’s the place I go to find out what I used to think.
And 7 years later?
constantine.name — July 2025
Honest accounting at fourteen years and five thousand posts. Tom Critchlow wrote in 2018 about networked writing — write about people you want to reach, the lowly hyperlink does the connecting. Seven years later: “in 14 years / 5,000 posts I’ve never had anyone (an author of something I’ve linked to) reach out to me.” And that’s fine. “I don’t blog as a way to fish for connections like that. I blog as a way of working with the garage door up.”
Like letter-writing?
constantine.name — March 2026
The current question, fifteen years in. A historian writes about relics — things not intended for future generations, but valuable precisely because of that. “I’ve now been typing away on this blog for fifteen years and what I have posted here has varied wildly in that time… While it has occurred to me to wonder what happens to the blog after I die, it had never occurred to me to wonder if there might be actual value to historians here. I’m honestly not sure what to do with that. Do I keep posting? Do I close the garage door?” The thread ends with the live question.
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