Life as a Freelancer

Writing online is pretty common, so opening a blog in 2021 is certainly not an exceptional event, but I would say that the golden age of blogging is long gone. Unfortunately, due to the prehistoric internet connections and my young age, I have no memory of the Far West of the internet, when blogs and forums dominated the web and social networks were still an idea inside Mark Zuckerberg’s head. Maybe Myspace was the first hint of what was going to happen. Having a personal online space where writing and publishing media content was the first rudimental tool to share our own life, interests, and works with the world. Myspace, Altervista, Blogspot are just a few names that those who have a few years on their shoulders remember with a tear. The goal behind these platforms was to give everyone the opportunity to have a personal online space where they can freely publish anything without too many restrictions: no character limit, no risk of censorship or ban by the platform (also for this reason the internet at the time was a Far West, for better or for worse). People who had some more technical knowledge could buy a domain, a hosting service and put their name on the address bar, without that annoying .altervista.com in the foreground and manage their window to the world more freely.

But the arival of social networks and smartphones has changed things: the ability to publish any thought immediately, by taking your phone out of your pocket and hot-typing what’s on your mind, has forever changed the nature of the internet, for better or for worse. I think the incredible interconnectedness between people is a huge step forward for the whole of humankind, I can instantly remember all my friends’ birthdays, or discover Woody Allen’s entire filmography with a couple of clicks. I can learn practically everything just by googling it or I start a brand new job in a month learning something on the web. Scrolling the feed of one of the many social networks is useful, it is certainly an information-rich tool and, usually, it reflects our interests fairly accurately (after all, we have chosen to start following that surf teacher who does yoga ad Honolulu, right?). But personally, I find that social networks are not the ideal place to discuss serious and really important content, after all the average users open Instagram many times a day, quickly scroll the feed, put a few likes, sometimes leave a comment without thinking too much, and then they put the smartphone back in their pocket quickly forgetting what they just did. I, therefore, think it is inappropriate to write an article like the one you are reading now, under a photo on Instagram, or on a Facebook post. Let’s not even talk about Twitter, if I had to copy what has been written so far on Twitter to publish it this would be the result: I would go out of 2651 characters. : D

For this reason, inspired by Austin Kleon’s book “Show Your Work”, I decided to write a blog, because I need to have a personal, but public space, where I can write my name and say this is my thought. I want to share my interests and freely write about them using all the characters I need for. And the same freedom also applies to those who will actively contribute to the discussion in the comments, as long as they respect one simple rule:

Always argue your reasons, quoting your personal experiences or real data. Try to write the credits of your quotation and respect other people’s thoughts.

I know I’m not so good at writing (especially in English), but I’ll get better. I know that I am not a luminary or an expert on most of the topics I will write about, but everything you will find in this blog is the result of my studies and my knowledge and in the same way, I would like readers to participate in the discussion, simply telling their experiences. My primary goal is to establish a dialogue with people, to put my head out of my apartment where I have been isolated for a long time (even before Covid my social life was not particularly active) and share with everyone what I do: from study to day to day work, from ideas to projects.

Why not a podcast or videos that are certainly easier and universally usable tools nowadays? Because I’m not good at public speaking for now, but I’m not ruling out any evolution in the future. At the moment I want to focus on writing, a tool that I have always practiced with ups and downs during my school life (even if during high school I wasn’t great at writing school essays). In fact, writing requires well-structured premeditation before publication and an extra commitment also from the reader. It is precisely for this slowness in expression and fruition that I chose writing, because unlike a video or a post on social media, reading an article provides an intention and a real interest in the subject matter. In the same way, the writer dedicates time and resources to researching not only the information to be included in the article but also the most suitable and understandable form for their audience. Writing takes its time and so do I. I chose to write to take the time to focus on something deeper, slower, and somehow meditative when compared to other sources of entertainment in order to put my ideas, projects, and work-life in order.

I am a pretty neat person so my intent is to apply a certain organizational method in the management of this blog. I want to divide this space into thematic categories each focused on my specific interest but all connected by a common theme: my life as a freelancer. I will talk about how to improve productivity both at work and in everyday life, I will talk about the tools I use to create my works: WordPress, Woocommerce, and the various plugins that I use most frequently or that I discovered during the development of a specific project. I will talk about coding, focusing mainly on Javascript which I have begun to study, and with which I intend to create a web application that I will talk about in a specific section of this blog. I would like to talk about the books I have read and why I have read them. I’ve always had a deep interest in discussing with other people their views on reading a book, but in my closest friends, no one has the same taste as I do in reading.

In short, I will deal with various topics, always applying my point of view as a filter, I will always quote the sources and references to all the information extracted from the web or from a book read in order to make the research easier. My biggest hope is that readers who approach this blog will do the same. The web is still a place full of trolls and fake profiles, but I am sure that writing personal and quality content can always attract people who appreciate that quality, filtering, at least in part, the ugly part of the internet. Can’t wait to get started!