A Soft Return to Simplicity: Why I Chose Bearblog.dev
B eyond the algorithm, beneath the noise, a signal pulsed, leading me to here, to bearblog.dev.
I started Bravely, because I wanted to share the truth about living with major depressive disorder.
But over the years, the blogging space changed.
Like a toxic algal bloom, the algorithm pushed us into a space where our words could no longer breathe.
We were told blogging is dead, the declaration pushing us into containing and framing our words to fit the algorithm.
Content creation hijacked blogging, bending our words, and skimming our experiences. For what? So our words can be sold back to us as content?
I’ve seen it play out before.
Except this was before the internet.
The algorithms were different then.
Before social media and content mills, various algorithms (a set of predetermined instructions) are woven into societal systems.
I noticed that just like algorithms, societal systems seem to be comprised of very sticky threads. These threads are not just based on patterns of data, but also firmly fixed on belief.
The systems that drive societies run not just on logic, but assumption. And this is what makes them dangerous.
Data points laced with assumption are sticky, they wrap around who we think we are.
Sometimes the stickiness is like honey, sometimes it's like suffocating in a spidery trap. Regardless of how caught up we are, these threads can cling and stick to us, on an endless loop and repeat.
Here's what they don't want us to know, those behind the systems that are supposed to keep us safe. The algorithms are composed of data points, they do not reflect who we truly are.
As a little girl, the family court thread was never mine to hold.
But I got tangled, and it was messy and very painful.
My biological father worked the system to ensure unconscious compliance.
In the courtroom, the thread whispered through adults who didn’t ask, didn’t see, didn’t kneel down to meet my small child eyes.
The system assumed I didn’t understand, but I did understand. I understood with my whole body. My entire nervous system lit up like a distress flare.
That was the day my shimmer began to scatter. Not because I was weak, but because I am real. The system wanted to manage me like a variable, not knowing that a small child was being torn apart by the abandonment algorithm.
I know what it feels like to live from a program that was never mine to begin with.
The script plays over and over, always masquerading as protection and yet, it never protected me or my mamma. On the contrary, we both suffered greatly because the system hardened what needed to be held.
They didn’t see us. Not really. Not as a mother and her little girl. Not as two precious humans with longings, fears and a heartbeat.
I became a symbol of something the system wanted. They wanted to claim victory, wanted to win the argument, not knowing I wasn’t a case to be won, but a soul longing to be held.
The script plays: “You are something to be decided over.” “You are a symbol of someone else’s pain.” “You do not belong to yourself.” And now, decades later, I see it happening again. I recognise the pattern. I feel it in my bones. And when my head eventually catches up, I go into flight-or-flight, into oh no, not again, not like this.
But I’m no longer that unheard girl.
Bravely She Blogs Timeline
A visit to the Wayback machine reveals the many iterations of Bravely She Blogs, starting from 2020.
Having been diagnosed with major depressive disorder (MDD), I was searching for personal blogs that could offer a more balanced, real life perspective on this devastating illness.
I ended up going self-hosted on wordpress.
I believed sharing my story and subsequent battle with addiction might offer a little glimmer of comfort to my readers.
But my intentions got co-opted by the visibility alogorithm. I noticed that instead of writing freely, my attention was being pulled into what seemed like a non-negotiable demand for producing content.
Bravely became something it was never meant to be. Eventually I burnt out.
I stopped blogging.
I resisted showing up on social media.
I got tangled into an all-or-nothing survival response.
While attempting to unwind myself, I discovered a shining truth: blogging, true blogging, was never dead.
Here at bearblog.dev, the simplicity of this glimmering blogging space wraps around me like a bear hug (see what I did there?).
This is a blogging platform where words matter most.
Here our words, our writing practice and creativity can shine.
It doesn't have to be all-or-nothing. I don’t have to be the abandoned or the abandoner when it comes to my writing.
I've struggled for a few years now, oscillating between trying to filter my words, and trying to create an authentic blog.
Until it dawned, that is what the algorithm seeks.
I got caught up in a distracting spiral of trying to justify and defend the quiet, sacred reasons I write.
But true blogging has nothing to do with folding into the incessant demand to create content.
We simply write.
We unwind the impulse to please the algorithm and show up so undeniably real that our words can’t be interpreted (or skimmed for content), only felt.
Our words are not a script to recite, but a return to the hush of truth beneath them.
We blog not to be measured by how others respond, we write to breathe our words alive. And if you have made it this far, dear reader, keep going, your words matter.
If it helps, maybe next time that impulse stirs, you could whisper inward: "I know who I am. And I don't need permission to live aligned with my heart."
Bear Hugs
Thank you dear Herman for creating Bearblog.dev, I’m so grateful for this space, and the intention behind it.
Thank you for understanding the deep need for our words to flourish into belonging.
As I type, I can viscerally feel the algorithms loosening. I no longer need to chase the algorithm for my words to bloom.
And thank you dear reader, for venturing here too.
Every blog here matters.
And through a single breath, in the pause between words — the heart shines.
I write bravely, not for approval, but to share my words as they tumble out: wild, untamed, unfiltered, like a dragonfy alighting on the peripheral of awareness.
*Hello, when I'm not pretending to human, I like to excavate the truth from ordinary moments, the ones we often overlook. Here on bearblog.dev I’m reclaiming our intrinsic right to freely express creative sentience.
I’ve pulled down all my wordpress posts.
Perhaps I’ll bring some of them here.
All I know is I don’t want to write for the algorithm anymore, I want to write for those who remember.*
before wifi, there were whispering trees. they were my signal, my web, my connection. they still are. — bravely, me