01C07

This was supposed to be some sort of history on this website from its inception somewhere in 2020 but I lost the motivation to write up such a thing after I wrote the primer. Here's just that instead if you need it orsomething.

The four-year anniversary of this website is three months and twenty days from now. That amount of time has felt like no time at all and forever simultaneously... and a lot's happened since then. I've gone through three different domains, including the one I'm on now, not including the original .neocities.org subdomain. There's been at least ten iterations of the website design and while that doesn't seem like much the iterations themselves were usually major in some way. I started not knowing really anything about web development, and I've come to the point where, in my website's current form, I haven't touched the Neocities web editor at all since I launched this iteration around five months ago (give or take). I guess I'm glad that I've got to a point where I'm happy with my online presence but – what happened to the fun in everything?

You go on my homepage and there's no Hotline Webring ( :( ), there's no JAUP, no Site ID card or anything. Where did all of this go? If you've known the site for longer than five months you'll know that that stuff has been there in at least some form.

The simple answer is that I guess I've drifted away from trying to be "a part" of the Web. My enthusiasm has dropped off and, while I'm still happy to be here on Neocities, my willingless to actively connect and communicate has dwindled substantially to the point where I'm intentionally trying to be reclusive. My website's design and pages signal towards no part of my personality. You could consider this place "soulless" by all means, however many times I try to populate it with my thoughts. Text can only go so far.

I'm more introspective on things now, and I intentionally veer towards sentimentality with most things. Personal experiences and the curse of sentience/awareness have caused me to become more conscious about the way I present myself, I guess, and I'm just not concerned with getting myself out there. Since I switched over to roxwize.xyz last September, there have been no major changes to the website design or layout. I'm certain this is the longest time anything I've made has gone without any sort of redesign or rework. I don't know if that's because I'm content with the state of things or if I'm just afraid of change at this point. The latter is just as likely as the former.

Adding onto why I've detached myself from the community of Neocities— I didn't move to roxwize.xyz by choice. Things are different now, I have trust issues, and instead of switching over domains, I've left my old self behind completely, leaving the then-active iteration of the website up on its original domain for it to stay there for perpetuity. I want there to be a disconnect. The old me might have made a better website design for the last website but that doesn't matter anymore. That's not how I'd like to present myself anymore because now it's linked to the old me.

In any case, things are different now. Concerns about not being enthusiastic or outgoing enough have been pushed to the side to the point where I've all but forgotten about them until now. The decisions to rid my website of any obvious personality or flair have been an entirely subconscious one, and now that I realize the choices I've made up to this point, I'm not sure whether I appreciate or regret it.