Post

Thanks for flagging. I’ll fix it tomorrow!

I'm not sure the increased hesitancy in publishing your thoughts publicly is *just* changes within yourself. Social media algorithms have trained us to pay too much attention to the reaction of others. I don’t have a magic answer on countering that, but I do think awareness of it helps.

This is so inspiring and exactly what I need right now. Thank you for hitting publish 🙏

Oof. Right in the feels. ❤️🫂

omg you're me +4 months! mattsayar.com/writing-publ...

I'm in this picture. It's weird how so many of us are getting the same this year.

when you make moves there are always haters. we miss you but you don’t owe us anything. tech twitter is dead. we are not our online avatars. never were.

I felt this! That's how I am with my music and blog posts.

yes. yes. yes. yes. some folks describe learning markup like learning grammar punctuation. and: sorta. what I love is your video gets at the abstract structure by physicalizing it with the boxes, envelopes, paper, writing. I feel it makes html approachable, even friendly. lovely. thank you!

I’m here if you want to talk through this stuff. Dealing with my own journey of figuring out a new normal.

Thank you for writing this. It matches my own trajectory over the years.

We all do so much better when we just do what we love. Thanks for writing this. It’s genuinely inspiring.

So relatable. Thank you Ashley ❤️

I’m so glad you hit publish! This entire post resonated with me. And it’s echoed how I’ve felt as well. I hope you’ll share small things in the future. Your writing style is amazing.

Job hunting for all of 2024, and coded and wrote daily. I'm 8 weeks into a new job learning seismology & geodesy. Finished my first milestone last week and tried to work through MCP examples on a snowy Saturday. I just couldn't, so I spent the weekend binge-watching The Pitt. I'm exhausted.

Lovely. Thanks for writing it. Cheers!

This was good to read. Thank you for posting it. That desire to build something that’s yours - that’s where the spark lives. You’ve already taken the first steps in creating this site (fantastically) and then writing. Keep on keeping on. :)

Oh Ashley, this is beautiful! I’ve also found myself far away from the creator I used to be. Just this week I agreed to write 4 articles for Lead Dev as a way to push myself back into it. We got this!

Thank you for writing this. I felt it in my bones. My own blog has been collecting dust for a few yrs now for the same reasons.

What I learned was to be kind to myself about change. I hope you can be kind to yourself too. You have changed, the Internet has changed -- you may not be ABLE to get back to how things were, even if you wanted to. There are 8B ways to be in this world and it's ok to explore another one. (FIN)

Well said. I think as we all get older, we realize that we don't know everything (even though we know more than we did!). So we set a higher bar for ourselves, which means the confident whippersnappers take up even more space. So glad you spoke up.

"I ended up feeling really far away. From people. From the industry. From the version of myself that used to be so sure." ☝️ that landed hard for me. ❤️❤️❤️❤️ Great article, thanks for sharing.

Thanks for writing this and hitting publish. It's nice to know someone else experiences this too.

Thank you so much! <3

This is awesome to read. I feel like this a lot I’m like I have horrible grammar and don’t always find the right words and get in my head. For the record I think your writing is rad and you just being you is pretty awesome and we’d all love to hear what your thinking we’re probably thinking it too

Thank you for writing this! It’s so relatable. 🙃

I synchronistically just watched a video about that very thing! www.youtube.com/watch?v=-sZZ...

A lot in there is me. Thank you.

Very real stuff, in a similar place right now with my job of "run a whole org" which leaves no time for "the entire reason i got into this line of work in the first place". Worse, the inertia around starting on ideas I know I won't have time to finish is just mentally brutal.

made me think about how things have changed: internet used to be a clean slate, real people faking-it-till-making-it now the internet is oversaturated with fake, and real people _not_ faking it are the signal in the noise

I love that non profits are helping to bypass the Hollywood block wall. Purchasing at full price newer authors to share with children of inmates. Pretty cool deal! Just thinking of hit publish. www.theyarecoping.org

We care and we appreciate you sharing it with us. Thank you Ashley.

Thanks for the blog post; I really need that!

"I know I’m not the only one trying to find their way back to something they used to love." This is me with making music. Slowly working my way back.

This is definitely something I (and I expect a lot of people) can relate to.

Thanks for sharing

Glad you’re doing it for you and excited to see what you share more again in your writing! Thank you for being kind to yourself and putting it out there for us to nod along 💜

Can deeply relate. Thank you for writing this ❤️

thanks for not shrinking back on this one. it's great and, here's to tinkering. may it always bring you the joy of getting your hand dirty, whether you publish or not

Read your post after @simonwillison.net shared it. Just wanted to come here and give a big 👍 So awesome to read a piece as real as that. Never stop.

This resonates deeply with me in so many ways…

"A lot of the folks who follow me are smart, opinionated, and not always generous." Congrats on posting! It does create a peculiarly specific type of worry - knowing possible readers. Sometimes I choose to think of how lucky I am to have a smart critic. But generosity is extremely undervalued.

Ashley! I care about you. I care about who you were, who you are and who you will be. This is canon and cannot be altered. Do what makes you happy and makes you fulfilled. We are better for your experiences.

omg i feel that. been trying to climb out of the hole recently

Nodding along. I hope you keep writing, when you feel like it. Thoughts or small project are appreciated even if we don’t say it (we should). I certainly appreciate the ideas, opinions and small projects 🙏 You are not alone either.

Random Bearded Fella on the internet cares. Also, thank you. Also, I have all of the self doubt.

Seriously thank you for pouring yourself into this post. I appreciate you!

Yay!! (I mean of course you had to rewrite your entire blog backend before posting this and yet still think you are not technical enough) but happy to see you give yourself permission to try stuff. Just remember, you are Ashley fuckin Willis, but that can mean whatever you want it to be.

Thank you so much for putting into words what's also on my heart and mind ❤️ amazing read, felt every word deep in my soul... the part of not going back to who you were, but instead going somewhere new... this is what keeps me going tbh.

I relate to so much of this. I appreciate you writing this!

Thanks for writing this, I feel this too.

Also: I read this by @rachsmith.com this week and I think it's related in a good way. We build a lot up in our minds. rachsmith.com/a-lack-of-fr...

I feel this so much friend 💖

Just finished reading, and this resonated a lot with me! Thanks for sharing.

Beautifully written, thank you for posting it.

Honesty, vulnerability, and courage. Felt this one through my screen. Love what you did here.

Ashley, I've always admired you, looked up to you and your leadership. Thank you for sharing this from your heart - it resonates in ways I can't really put into words at this time. But thank you.

Also I love you.

I love this and can relate to a lot of it so much.

Sometimes, it's okay not to know. I've spent most of the last three decades not being sure, and you know what? It's absolutely fine.

I love your writing so much. Thank you for sharing 💜

I agree with you that many people aren’t exactly generous. But that’s always gonna be the case. Perhaps one way out is the write for one person in the audience who will always care — you — so you can be free and have fun

💜💜 Could relate to a lot of your story. I've been trying to find my old self as well.

I'm really glad you ended up publishing it! Looks like a lot of people can relate, me included. I feel like lately I've been slowly feeling more creative again and it makes me hopeful so I hope you keep sharing stuff! 😃

Thank you so much ❤️

Thank you for saying that, friend 💜

❤️