Rethinking tommi.space

Here are my notes about rethinking myself and tommi.space. These thoughts got better formulated in this post

Having a personal website should be the right balance between doing something fun and owning your own communication means e.g. the IndieWeb, etc, etc. I got it wrong at the beginning, by feeling this need to put inside the website all the stuff I do. But it is wrong, because sometimes this need to put all the stuff I do there and properly document it means feeling the pressure to share something over leaving it, and so it becomes the same as the rabbit hole of social media, and even worse because social media has less friction: you can post without working too much on it, while on the website you do need more time. The example of Gemini: the decision about it basically represents the whole point of rethinking tommi.space. Not being a space where I necessarily represent all of myself, or something like a log of everything. Rather, a joyful, and also a political representation of struggle and joy and myself. Not necessarily in a comprehensive way, but in a loud way. I don’t know, not all of myself necessarily, but the salient significant points about myself. So, I would think about taking down the pages that I do not maintain, pages that I created many months or years ago with the intention of filling them with stuff I’ve been thinking about but I never had the time, the energy or I didn’t bother to fill. The fact that they are not filled, it just gives me anxiety of the need of filling them instead of me actually wanting to tell that stuff. This is why I should be rethinking the fact that I want to put on the website stuff I do want to talk about instead of just putting in the website stuff to log it, to track it.

Secondly, the rethinking starts from the conception of the fact that tommi.space has been a personal website but it degenerated as most of the stuff risk to degenerate on the web and in free software: an individualistic space super focused on me, I develop and deal with it in a bubble, me and my solipsistic, individualistic space. A space that is both of relief and a safe place from the world, but at the same time also a self-perpetration of a strongly bubblified and isolated virtual space and virtual thinkering, overthinking, and stress… about what? About nothing. This relates to the problem that Sabrina pointed out, about Quantified self.

By being really aware of this stress but without seeing its broader context, I individualized more and more and more and more my being nerd and my geekiness, instead of making it collective and enjoying it collectively, as the best stuff is really done. Hence, tommi.space should represent this intention, and the perfect representation of such a concept is the HackerSpace. This means I wouldn’t be coding, experimenting, and doing stuff only by myself. Even though it’s fine to have a personal space, it is toxic to just have an onanistic point of view. Discovery and learning is awesome. Yet, it is truly fun and profoundly significative when it is communal. The digital space allows you to not be isolated in this, but it can become isolated when it comes down to being only you and your computer, with a merely virtual and abstract connection to technical vanities. HackerSpaces, tinkering communities, self-organized spaces are something new I have the opportunity to connect to by living in Berlin. I never had this before. It’s like pursuing this stuff and, like, approaching it, living it, meddling with it practically, communally, by relating to people, by chatting; and not necessarily representing it or logging it or tracking it virtually. Firstly and above all experiencing it.

This is related to the practical development of tommi.space. Everything I have ever been thinking, almost everything I’ve ever been thinking so far about technology, and development and computer sciences, Most of the time starts starts and/or ends up being about stuff I need or I want to develop for myself or in light of tommi.space and its particular structure. Whereas I should expand my vision of digital tools and technology beyond my specific, tailored, personal, individualistic needs. Focusing and pursuing a collective endeavor and more collective, communal and interpersonal technology development.

• Consider taking down the pages I wouldn’t practically consider taking down the pages I’m not maintaining because of this.
• Having a personal website should be the right balance between fun and
• Audio recording
• Digital liberation non in an eschatological way, but in being conscious aware and fight for rights
• Tagging v2 on git, highlighting it is not a tech change but a change in the philosophy of the space. Still the virtual representation of my mind, but more conscious and pseudo-mature
• From an inductive approach (what do I need? How can I make it? Stress not being able to make it) to a deductive approach (contributing to free software and open/community projects, doing it for curiosity, for learning, for fun… not purpose driven, but fun/community driven)
• Self-hosting (giTMI, TMI Pics) as the main example: it should be nice and a bit fun rather than a manic obsession. Most times there are ethical alternative hosted by collectives that are great
• this new perspective starts exactly from this very post: I should not think “hey, now that I rethought everything, I am liberated from my nerd stress” but “let’s see how I feel, be ready to adapt my thoughts and change my mind or my behavior without being oppressed by the need to conceptualize it”
• tommi.space is the virtual representation of my mind: I should use it as a painting, a self-portrait, not a virtual emulation, copy, or detailed photography of my being. That would be quantified self at its greatest worst.
• What is private and what is public?
• self not ego
• not a haunting space to be continuously updated, but an evergreen which does not break of feel weird if not updated for months
• Actually focusing on content rather than on the container