Why am I building this?

Seriously, why? It is late and I don't need a personal website. I have been working on this site for the past week and it has been slow, tedious, and at points aggravating work. I didn't know anything about writing or hosting a website seven days ago, and learning the nuances of Apache, PHP, and CSS aren't immediately useful to me. So, the question remains: Why am I up at 01:30 doing this?

First, let me say that I wouldn't be working on this now if I didn't have extra time on my hands. A week and a half ago the company I was working for ran out of money and I am currently on an unexpected vacation. This project wouldn't have come about if I were still putting as many hours into work as I was two weeks ago. Partially, working on this website is a way to keep myself occupied. But why work on a website? There are many other things I can work on that are more beneficial to the world. A blog seems like a vain — and maybe useless — drain of my energy.

In the past I have thought about writing my own blog. Having a platform to put my thoughts out in the world was appealing. Not that I think that anyone will care about what I have to say; The internet won't find my banal musings more interesting than the carefully curated videos of cats reacting to cucumbers, and I don't have any particularly poignant or novel ideas worth sharing. Then, why do I want to put myself on the world wide web where trolls, future employers, and my frenemies can easily find my mistakes? It is because even a little bit of visibility will help me refine my thoughts and be more intentional with the content I make.

Like I said above, I don't expect the traffic to my website to be large. In fact, I only expect people who know me to come here. (Hi, Mom and Dad!) This is going to be my online journal. I believe that the act of writing down your thoughts helps you work through problems. Often times revisiting problems later on can help you think about them in new ways or with a fresh perspective. My journaling, however, is not very consistent, and when I do write my thoughts come out in such a jumbled and non-linear mess that it is difficult to draw a conclusion from them. It is the kind of aimless rambling that my grandpa would call "diarrhea of the mouth." Putting my thoughts onto a website where the wider public can view it — trolls and all — will make me think harder about what I am writing. This in turn will help me figure out why I do what I do.

Or, maybe I just need a different hobby. I will let you all know soon!