Mon, Jan 5, 2026

On ownership, quiet thinking, and carving a small, durable place on the Internet.

Every year, especially around the end of the year and the start of the new year, people ask, “Is it a good year to start a personal website?” I’m confident that it was, is, and always will be.

“I was there, Gandalf, I was there 3000 years ago.”

I remember when a personal website felt like a normal thing to have. You wrote a few pages, linked to things that mattered to you, and returned when life gave you something worth putting into words. The site did not rush you. It did not judge momentum. It simply stayed put. That idea has aged well.

A personal website still does what it always did. It gives you a small, durable place on the internet that belongs to you and answers to no one else.

Ownership

A personal website starts with a simple act: claiming a domain. Once you do that, everything changes. You stop borrowing space and start inhabiting it. What you publish has an address that doesn’t change when platforms change their minds.

This is why the website domain you own matters more than the blog alone. The blog is the active surface, the stream of thoughts and notes. The website is the ground beneath it. It holds context, memory, and continuity in a way no platform profile ever can.

I have been writing on my own site, for a long time. It is alive and kicking without the need to scale it or optimize it. The writing there stays put, even when my opinions shift. That stability turns writing into a long practice rather than a series of performances.

Time Works Differently on a Personal Website

Most of the internet runs on urgency. Personal websites operate on accumulation.

When you publish on your own site, old posts do not vanish. New ones do not replace them. They sit next to each other and quietly form a record. Over the years, patterns emerge without effort. You begin to see what you return to, what you abandon, and what refuses to let you go.

This long view sharpens judgment. It also encourages restraint. Both are valuable skills in a noisy world.

A Place to Think in Public

A personal website works best as a thinking tool. Writing publicly forces clarity without demanding polish. You explain ideas to better understand them. You leave notes for your future self without hiding them away.

“By publishing ourselves on the web, we reject the role of passive media marketing recipient… The best use of our technology enhances our humanity, it lets us shape our narrative and share our story and connect us.” — Justin Hall, best known as a pioneer blogger.

Unlike social feeds, which fragment thought, or private notes, which tend to disappear into folders, a personal website keeps your thinking visible and searchable on your terms. It becomes an external memory that grows alongside you.

Much of what I have written elsewhere on this site circles around this idea: writing as a way to think, not a way to perform. That orientation makes the work sustainable.

Write Before You Feel Ready

Most people delay starting because they imagine an audience too soon. They wait to feel confident, original, or qualified. That waiting often postpones the very clarity they are seeking.

Writing produces readiness. Publishing creates a mild, healthy pressure to be honest. Readers may come slowly, or not at all, but that does not diminish the value of the work. Consistency matters more than volume. Returning matters more than finishing.

Keep the Tools Out of the Way

You do not need an elaborate setup to begin. If you are non-technical, choose a simple hosted platform and use the default design. Write short posts. Let the site feel plain. Plain ages well.

“The point of blogging is not the software. The software exists to make the writing happen.” — Dave Winer

If you are comfortable reading documentation to get things done, buy a domain and choose boring tools. Static sites, minimal systems, and text-first approaches reduce friction and maintenance. A personal website should not demand attention. It should accept it when you decide to give it.

I have often talked about simplicity and long-term thinking on this site because complexity rarely pays rent over the long term.

Decide What Belongs

A personal website does not need a content strategy. It requires honest material, your own personal content, be it about your curiosity, a side project you are working on, a lesson learned from a failed attempt, a new definition that you stumbled on the other day, or just about how a normal, boring appliance in your home works.

Essays, notes, explanations, and observations all belong. Some posts will be short. Some will feel unfinished. Gaps between posts are natural. Changes in direction signal growth. Over time, the body of work gains weight simply by existing together.

Quiet Returns

The payoff from a personal website arrives without announcements. You gain clarity through repetition. You build credibility by leaving a trail of thought. Opportunities show up from people who have been reading quietly for years.

None of this requires scale but presence. The site becomes a long-lived signal that continues to speak even when you are not publishing.

This Year is the Right Year

Every year feels like a late year to start. That feeling never goes away. What does change is how much you would value having a longer record behind you. Register a domain. Publish one page. Write when you have something to say. Return when you can.

A personal website rewards patience, restraint, and continuity. Those qualities do not age out.

First-Timers, Newbies, and Rookies

Do not wait for confidence. Write small and publish anyway. Let the site be imperfect and quiet. If it survives your first year, it will likely survive many more. That is how these things last.