Exploring Existence

Reading of The Staff Engineer's Path

2026-04-02T07:12:41.258376+00:00

I recently completed my second reading of The Staff Engineer's Path by Tanya Reilly. This is my attempt to linger on my reading, as I posted earlier. It's not a review but a reflection on how the book affected me.

When I first read the book almost two years ago, I was a senior software engineer looking to get promoted. I looked for answers to questions like:

What is a staff engineer?
How do they differ from a senior engineer?
Is being a staff engineer something I aspire to?
If so, how would I get there?

Last summer I got promoted to Tech Lead. Returning to the book with this new perspective profoundly changed how I read it — this time I searched for ways to become a better Staff Engineer¹.

Funny how a book remains the same but we, the readers, have changed and see a book in an entirely new light.

There are a lot of valuable lessons in the book, but this is how it affected me most:

A clear picture of what Staff Engineering is. The author presents a helpful mental model of three pillars (big-picture thinking, project execution, and leveling up), supported by a foundation of technical knowledge to create impact. This model captures the essence of a staff engineer's distinguishing skills. I often use it to reflect on whether I’m doing the right things.
Writing code is NOT the highest-leverage activity. Coding less was tough for me, and the book helped me be more at peace with it. It was scary. Coding was such a big part of my career, the skill that made me valuable, and such a direct way of adding value. The activities that replaced it have much longer feedback loops but also larger impact.
Being the grown-up in the room. The book made me aware that, in this role, how you act has a big influence on those around you. I’m using this knowledge to help the team keep their cool despite complicated or challenging situations and to keep morale up.
Influence those within your orbit. People look to me as an example more than before. I’ve been using this to my benefit by setting examples in code, shaping how we work, and even increasing psychological safety. This point also reframed code reviews for me. I hated doing them, but now I see them as teaching and learning opportunities.
Leading a project means actively steering it. Leading can take many shapes: tackling the hard problems, flagging issues no one sees, or unblocking the project, to name a few. Learning to steer a project is a big learning point for me. I’m in the process of figuring it out, but at least now it’s on my radar — front and center. I’m doing a lot more “glue work” than before, such as creating pathways for teams to collaborate, documenting decisions, facilitating discussions, and providing technical perspective in the near-future roadmap.
Realizing I shouldn’t do it alone. Make room for others. Delegate. Rely on my team. As Tech Lead, I’m one of the most experienced members on a team, and it’s tempting to interpret that as having to solve the most problems. The book taught me that, in doing so, I’d hijack learning opportunities from others — short-term gain for a long-term loss. It also doesn’t scale. Time for coding in this role is radically less than before.

The Staff Engineer's Path is worth reading if you're a software engineer who wants to move beyond senior level but stay on the tech path. It answers questions like what a Staff Engineer is and how to be great at it. It has proven valuable to me, and I'll probably read it again in a few years. No doubt I'll see it with a completely different set of eyes again.

At my company, the Dutch Railways, we lack a formal Staff+ ladder. Tech Lead is among our highest technical roles, making Reilly’s principles directly applicable to my scope.↩

On leaving consultancy

2026-03-28T20:37:36.453904+00:00

I’ve decided: I’m never returning to software consultancy again. After nearly a decade in consultancy, I recently took my first in-house software engineering position. How do those roles differ? Why do I prefer my current position? First things first: why did I get into consultancy in the first place?

I got into consultancy because it allowed me to see different companies and technologies, meet different people, and tackle a variety of problems in a short timeframe. In retrospect, it was beneficial to my career, as I rapidly built a network and expanded my skill set.

Consultancy also had the benefit of never having to fully commit to a single company. Whenever an assignment didn’t turn out as I hoped, I left without it having a major impact on my life. Yes, I’d have to start over at another assignment, but I kept the same employer. I’ve prematurely terminated a few assignments this way and was grateful for the option. Those negative experiences even had an upside: they taught me what I value in my work: good atmosphere, being surrounded by fun people, and freedom.

However, never committing to a single company was a double-edged sword. There was always a sense of distance between me and the company I was at: I felt like an outsider looking in, never feeling the need to truly understand its goals and mission. Unsure about how I contributed to the bigger picture, I often felt demotivated and disconnected.

Worse was that I wasn’t selective about finding companies that aligned with my ideals. The temporary nature of the assignments meant that I was more inclined to make concessions: a gig with interesting technology outweighed the fact that I was indifferent about the company. Big mistake.

My main selection criteria for my current position (at the Dutch Railways¹) was whether I aligned with its purpose. I’m glad I did. Now I feel part of something bigger than myself: improving public transport. That’s a mission I can get behind. Yes, it still scares me sometimes that I “can’t hit the rage-quit button” and walk out when something happens I don’t like, but that mission resonates with me and pulls me through. It’s a much deeper sense of fulfillment than anything I felt during my consultancy days.

Worse than feeling disconnected from a company’s mission was feeling disconnected from the people I worked with. A big reason for that was me. Every assignment was finite, had an expiry date. This feeling pervaded how I acted, and I didn’t invest in relationships. The relationships I did build were with people in my vicinity, and even those were shallow.

Now it’s completely different. I engage with more people and get to know them better than I previously did. Work turns out to be a lot more fun with meaningful relationships. Not having an expiration date made all the difference. Relationships now feel worth putting time and effort into, because I don’t know upfront that they’re short-lived.

Don’t get me wrong; I understand the allure of consultancy: its faux safety of not having to commit and sampling many environments. But there’s no free lunch. It did me more harm than good, which unfortunately took me nearly a decade to realize. Better late than never.

The Dutch Railways (NS) is the biggest passenger train operator in the Netherlands.↩

Write what you read

2026-03-09T20:02:04.305124+00:00

I just read my second book this year, Adrian Tchaikovsky’s Children of Time. As I closed the book, I had all kinds of thoughts about it, as I usually do. Normally, I’d ignore them and move on, but I want to change that.

One of my long-held goals is to linger on my reading¹. I want to take my time to enjoy a book more thoroughly, consolidate my thoughts about it, and reflect on how it affected me.

One of my pitfalls is jumping straight into the next book after finishing another. The temptation to dive into a new book is hard to resist. But moving on without pausing prevents a book from affecting you. Reading with more intent, unfortunately, means reading fewer books.

It took me a while to commit to reading less, but how can I make the time I linger on a book more fruitful?

I tried taking notes, SQ3R, drawing mind maps—they were too rigid. Rigidity destroys the joy I get from an activity, which I’ve previously experienced with blogging and journaling. So I arrived at another approach: writing.

I’m experimenting with writing short posts about the books I’ve read.

Writing is thinking. It’s a great way to crystallize nebulous thoughts. Writing forces you to dig deeper, to serialize thoughts into a cohesive whole, flowing from top to bottom.

Writing for a (fictional) audience incentivizes you to do the best you can. The beauty is that you reap the benefits even if you never hit publish.

But where to begin? I like to start with these questions to reflect on a book:

Why did I want to read this book?
Did it deliver?
What did I like or dislike about it?
What stood out about it?
How has it affected me?

I’m curious to find out if this approach helps me read with more intent and linger on my books. Let’s find out.

I’d love to hear if this worked for you, or if you have tips for me to deepen my reading!

"Lingering" is a term that stuck with me after reading a few works of Byung-Chul Han, such as The Scent of Time, The Burnout Society, and Vita Contemplativa. Most of Han’s work revolves around slowing down—something I obviously struggle with in my reading.↩

Man’s best friend

2026-02-11T13:42:14.587956+00:00

Dogs are called man’s best friend for their loyalty, emotional support, and obedience. My dog Loki is none of those. But what he might lack in those areas, he makes up for in others. Unintentionally, he is not only my companion but an effective teacher on how to live life.

The loose leash

I always imagined that when I finally had a dog of my own, it would be loyal and obedient. That we would go on long walks, him happily trotting along beside me no matter the distractions we would face. He’d pay attention to me, giving me a look saying, “I’m with you.”

Instead, Loki yanks me across the street because apparently sniffing the tree there is a matter of life and death. He’ll lunge at other dogs, try to sniff strangers, forgetting I’m even there, often feigning temporary deafness despite his acute hearing.

At first, I tried with all my might to train him to be the ideal dog I envisioned. The payoffs? Marginal. The stress? Massive.

After a while, I learned that it’s better to embrace his nature, to work with it rather than against it. No, he will never stay at my side perfectly. But if I use a leash effectively, I can get him to go along for a nice walk without stopping to inspect every blade of grass. I had to learn to accept reality rather than resist it.

Don’t forget the zoomies

As I grew up, life and all its demands made me play less and less. Once I reached adulthood, I had all but forgotten how to. It was a luxury. I had better, more useful things to do.

Nowadays, when I work at home and walk down the stairs to grab a cup of coffee, Loki is there. He’ll stand there, looking at me, and just from his gaze I know it’s playtime. I make one move, and off he goes, zooming through the living room.

He’s my constant, fluffy reminder that play is not a luxury—it is essential for a happy life. Because whenever I see him running around like that, I can’t help but think he’s having a better time than I am.

Sunshine and rainbows

When we first got Loki as a puppy, he was a handful, which is understating it. He whined all through the night and ran off whenever we let him off the leash. Once, he even jumped and stood on the windowsill to bark at passing dogs, which admittedly sounds funny. When that dog is 45 kg’s worth of Labradoodle, though, I can assure you it’s not. It was a rough time that I did not enjoy. Boy, do I wish I had.

Before we knew it, Loki was all grown up, the puppy days irrevocably lost. It saddens me that I never enjoyed the times when he would randomly attack me with his razor-sharp puppy teeth, or when he would sleep belly-up with his adorable pink paws.

Loki taught me to enjoy the ups despite the downs—that they will coexist. We cannot sit around and wait for the good times to find enjoyment because moments will irretrievably pass you by in the meantime. Life is not all sunshine and rainbows; finding happiness in life despite that is a conscious effort.

Five years and counting

Loki isn’t a poster-boy dog, but I love him nonetheless. He’s my buddy, and I’ve grown fond of him and his peculiarities over the years. He’s been with me for almost five years now, though it feels like much less.

It pains me to realize how old he already is, to be confronted by the fact that he’ll be around for just five, maybe ten, more years if I’m lucky.

After the sadness ebbs away, a bittersweet smile emerges on my face. We’ve had a great time together so far. Loki’s presence serves as a constant reminder: enjoy the time you’re given with those you love.

As Loki puts his head on my lap, as he does every evening, I can’t help but see him differently after writing this. He’s not just my buddy, my four-legged companion—no, he’s a great teacher. Despite being the antithesis of an ideal dog, Loki turns out to be man’s best friend nonetheless.

Mastering engineering modes

2026-01-29T19:28:02.178945+00:00

I recently read this thought-provoking piece by Sean Goedecke about how there are two types of software engineering: pure and impure. In short, Goedecke argues, the pure kind is driven by a sense of aesthetics, like art or research, whilst the impure kind is pragmatic, driven by external needs.

Though I agree with most of the article, it did raise questions in me:

is it really a dichotomy?
is an engineer one or the other?
can you improve these “engineering modes”?
how does it impact team composition?

I think a better way to look at pure and impure engineering is as distinct modes Here’s why.

A spectrum, not a dichotomy

Pure and impure engineering is a useful mental model, but it requires nuance. In reality, depending on the situation, you need both types of engineering, even within the same project¹.

For instance, given a looming deadline, a team of engineers will likely shift to an impure type of engineering. Work needs doing, there’s a need for outcome, and impure engineering is the mode best suited for the job.

However, at other times, work might shift towards pure engineering. Perhaps you’re building something entirely new in the codebase, and you need to blaze a new trail, make choices (and trade-offs) on how to achieve the functionality, and make it simple² so that others might follow.

I remember a case like this at NS (Dutch Railways). We worked on an application that detected conflicts in what operators want to do with trainsets, such as whether the combination of trainsets fits all platforms along its route. After a while, a need arose for another type of conflict, with many more cases to come. Pure engineering laid a solid foundation after which we churned out value with impure engineering³.

Whether you need pure or impure engineering depends on context. Perhaps the application is short-lived and favors impure engineering, or maybe, like at NS, your application is mission-critical for public infrastructure. Here the scales would tip towards a balance between pure and impure engineering.

Time, change, and uncertainty are the true stressors to the software we build⁴. As you expect more stressors, work will resemble a pendulum moving between pure and impure engineering, rather than being a fixed point on the spectrum. Strong engineers have a good sense of judgment regarding this predicament.

Shifting modes

The article frames pure/impure engineering as types of work and engineers, but I think of them as distinct modes. Not only do you land somewhere on the spectrum by nature, you can leverage them separately. A strong engineer shifts between modes based on necessity.

This is a valuable skill in engineers. It makes them adaptable to situations and able to tackle a variety of projects. In a way, it’s the difference between being a specialist and a generalist, and I’d argue most companies would do well with a majority of generalists⁵.

I also think it’s a skill available mostly to strong engineers. It’s rare to see inexperienced engineers capable of both, but I’ve seen plenty possessing one or the other. In fact, I was one of them, highly favoring pure engineering.

However, I do think you can develop these engineering modes, although you’ll most likely be inclined to one or the other. If you’re aware of these modes and your own tendencies, you can improve the weaker one (or capitalize on the strong one).

I’ve experienced this growth firsthand. In recent years, I’ve worked on my impure mode. I learned to consider context in everything that I do and to leverage the impure mode when needed. For instance, when we recently did a proof of concept at NS, I deliberately favored speed and results over elegant code. This would’ve been incredibly difficult in my early years. Back then, I didn’t even realize there was an option other than the pure one.

A case for heterogeneous teams

Most projects require a blend of both pure and impure engineering, which is why team heterogeneity is important. Since each engineer is probably better at one or the other mode, having a team consist of engineers of both types is a good idea. The weaknesses of one engineer are dampened by the strengths of another. It also provides opportunities to learn. It’s a good opportunity to see someone excel at your weakness up close.

Pure-engineering-inclined individuals such as myself benefit from the presence of impure ones. Whenever I’m on the verge of starting a pure engineering expedition⁶, I can count on teammates calling me back. Vice versa, when I see an impure-inclined engineer move at breakneck speed, I will be sure to point out dealbreakers in the results or discuss guardrails upfront. Together we strike a solid balance and learn along the way, albeit with some (healthy) friction.

Conclusion

The distinction between pure and impure engineering is a valuable lens to possess. Using it, you can assess what type of work something is, how best to tackle it, and use it to spot opportunities for growth in yourself and your teams. Pure and impure engineering are distinct modes on either end of a spectrum. Mastering the engineering modes can make you an even better engineer.

Though there are always exceptions. Niche projects, like Goedecke mentions, where pure engineers might excel; startups where the impure engineers shine; et cetera.↩
Simple, in the wise words of Rich Hickey, ain’t easy.↩
Goedecke rightfully mentions that this is where AI has most leverage. Perhaps my pure inclination is also why I’m not sold on its application yet.↩
Residuality Theory by Barry O’Reilly radically changed my perspective on software. Highly recommended.↩
I imagine that the majority of companies do not operate in niche domains where specialists shine, though I suspect that as a company grows so will its demand for specialists.↩
If someone from my team reads this, I imagine them nodding their heads with unrivaled intensity right about now.↩

Beware of reading lists

2026-01-02T12:05:58.314730+00:00

I’m an avid reader—it’s the hobby I spend the most time on. As my hobby developed, I started keeping two lists: a to-read list and a read list. The former to track books I want to read, the latter to record what I have read. Both sound helpful, but are they? The short answer: only if you’re careful.

To-read lists are useful tools. There are so many books worth reading and only so much mental capacity to remember them. I love it when someone recommends a book to me or when I stumble upon a title during a random internet search. I hated it when I forgot about those finds, so I put them on a list—a to-read list.

Before I knew it, the to-read list evoked a sense of pressure in me. I felt a constant urge to finish a book and move on to the next. Obviously, this cycle would never end, as my curiosity fills up the list much faster than I can deplete it. Like Sisyphus, I was pushing a boulder up the hill, only to have it tumble down again as soon as I reached the top. Worse, I was never fully immersed in my current book, but always thinking about the next one. It prevented me from savoring what I was reading. The goal isn’t to get the boulder to the top of the hill. It’s to enjoy the act of getting it there¹.

Memory is a fallible thing, and I cannot remember all that I’ve read over the years. The read list turned out to be a wonderful tool for this purpose. Why did I track my reading? Because reflecting on it brings back memories and emotions, as well as sparks novel ideas. As I wrote earlier, I read to be transformed, and that process takes time; sometimes it only happens in retrospect.

You can tell a lot about a person by their reading. Keeping track of what I’ve read made it easier to share, for instance, by publishing it on my site. At a glance, visitors can make an accurate guess about what interests me and whether that aligns with themselves.

However, the read list is not without its dangers either. As the (in)famous Goodhart’s Law states:

When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure

In this case: track the number of books you’ve read, and it will influence your behavior.

Before I knew it, I was trying to beat last year’s reading goal. I succeeded. But at what cost? I finished books I didn’t enjoy for them to count toward my goal; I favored shorter books over longer ones, missing out on incredible stories such as my current read, Midnight’s Children. The read list, not passion, directed my reading.

How I employed the to-read and read lists nearly killed my reading hobby. They turned a source of immense joy into yet another mechanistic act of optimization, where the destination outweighed the journey. After I realized how much this opposed my reading intentions, I decided something had to change.

Nowadays, I keep a minimalistic to-read list with a realistic limit², transforming it into an “up-next” list. When I encounter a promising title, I weigh it against what’s on the list: if it’s more interesting, it takes a spot; otherwise, it disappears into the abyss that is my long-term memory. Books that genuinely spark my interest have a way of resurfacing anyway. It turned out to be an effective filter.

To fix my issues with the read list, I’ve stopped numbering the books and no longer keep yearly reading goals. Getting rid of the metrics removed my tendency to read to improve the numbers. Once again, I could read for the sake of reading, which turned out to be incredibly liberating.

Is my current strategy perfect? No, I’m continually making adjustments. It’s a constant battle to prevent the to-read list from spiraling back into the endless checklist that it was. To make things worse, I cannot enter a bookstore without buying something, growing my stash of unread books and thus my to-read list.

Despite these struggles, changing how I employ reading lists has rekindled my passion for reading. Reading lists are valuable if you remain aware of their effects on your reading behavior. Be careful. Use them intentionally.

I align with Albert Camus’ take on the Myth of Sisyphus and recommend reading his work.↩
A limit of 5–10 works well for me, but yours may be different.↩

Seize the moment(um)

2026-01-27T12:58:43.835782+00:00

I’ve been wanting to write for a long time but keep shutting myself down for many reasons, one of which is not acting on momentum.

There are times when I can get really excited about something, particularly when I’m hit by a new insight. My mind will chase the thought relentlessly, eager to dig deeper and uncover the insight in full. Those moments are the best to write—when you’re brimming with energy and passion. And yet, I don’t.

Why?

Well, life tends to get in the way. Sometimes I’ll simply be low on energy, other times I self-sabotage. One way I do this is by making my writing “efficient.”

At any given time, I have a few partly written posts lying around. Some might be crude, others might have a lot of my time invested in them. Those are the troublesome ones.

Because whenever I do have time and energy and am in the mood to write—a pretty rare combo to come across as a father of two young kids—my mind goes: “Better work on that post you nearly finished, dontcha think? At least then you’d have one crossed off the list—something in return for the time invested.” Which sounds sensible. But sensible isn’t what motivates me to write. Finishing those posts covering thoughts that have long lost their momentum is a chore¹.

What I do write for is a spark. I write best, and enjoy it the most, when I follow the ideas that light a fire in me, and that is when a thought has momentum.

Momentum is like a wave. It comes rushing at you at its own pace, and you can decide to seize the opportunity and ride it or let it pass. After it’s gone, it’s gone, though. I’m going to ride the wave more often. Seize the momentum.

I love writing. Writing whilst feeling that spark? Those moments are magical.

Yes, this is a glaring example of sunk cost fallacy. Realizing it doesn’t make it easier, though…↩

Finally Getting This Blogging Thing Right

2026-01-29T19:34:40.172443+00:00

I’m coming up on five years of blogging in one form or another, after which you’d think I’d have the hang of it, right?

Not really.

I’m still confronted with crippling doubts every time I sit down to write, wondering: Is it good enough? I know that’s my perfectionism speaking, but it’s still there, preventing me from simply writing and publishing. But is that all, or is there more to it? I reckon there is.

After I sat down and thought¹ about it, I realized what it was: my expectation of what a blog was supposed to be was completely wrong. I thought blogs should be perfected pieces of content, crafted word-by-word by experts on profound subjects offering novel insights. I was wrong—so wrong. Yet I couldn’t be happier about it.

A happy little accident from my recent write-up on moving back to the small web was that I found a bunch of interesting blogs during my research. These blogs were run by individuals, and they had no other motive than sharing their thoughts with the world. The posts had no paywalls, no search engine optimization, nor were they polished to perfection. No, they were just raw human experiences, and boy, did I love that. It turns out they’re a lot more interesting.

The stark contrast to what I was used to got me questioning: What is a blog, really?

I realized my view was strongly influenced by what I was exposed to: the commercial web. Yet here were these personal blogs, which showed me that a blog could be whatever you want it to be. It doesn’t have to be perfect; it can have spelling mistakes, ideas don’t have to be research-backed², no it can be much simpler than that. It can simply be a place where you share your thoughts³. It’s a conversation you have with anyone who cares to read it.

Pondering this question caused me to stumble upon a deeper one yet: Why do I blog?

At first, my reasons were career-driven: I wanted to share knowledge in the open and build reputation. Those reasons are still valid, but just as my blog is constantly under construction⁴, my motivations for blogging have also evolved.

Now, my primary motivation is my love for writing⁵. I love how it helps me figure out my own thoughts, how it hones them, and how it helps me explore them in greater depth. Through writing, I scrutinize my thoughts, critique them, and it has even proven to be an effective process of self-discovery⁶.

You could then ask: If writing is so helpful in itself, why publish it for the world to see?

I’ve asked myself that question many times. Again, one of the posts I found made me realize what it was: learning in the open. Writing for an audience, even a hypothetical one⁷, forces me to do a better job and push myself further than I would otherwise. That’s where the magic of creation lies—when you push your boundaries. It’s when I write things I never thought I could, things I look back on with awe. And every time I reread one of those pieces, a little bit of that feeling comes back to me, filling me with joy and excitement.

Sharing your thoughts publicly⁸ also opens it up to affect the lives of others. You never know what your words might set off in another human being. It might even help you find like-minded people⁹. By hoarding your darlings¹⁰, you prevent all those possibilities from ever coming to fruition.

Having written all this, I can finally say: Yes, I’m finally getting this blogging thing right. It turns out it should simply be what I want it to be. That is enough.

Well, wrote about it. These days, whenever I want to think about something, I write down my thoughts.↩
Though it should be well thought out and critically examined.↩
This post by Barry Hess made a big impact on me. It is a short post, but it completely shifted my perspective on what a blog can be. Another valuable read, was this one by Ben Werdmuller. Not only does it give a short and sweet introduction to blogging, it’s history, but also this:

What you shouldn't worry about is whether what you're sharing is valuable. If you want to share it, it's inherently valuable: a reflection of who you are and how you think about the world.

Which was exactly what I needed.↩
Sophie Koonin wrote a lovely post about the imperfections of personal websites and viewing them as a process, rather than a result.↩
Although it can also be the worst thing in the world when the results don’t turn out the way you wanted them to be.↩
Which is pretty meta, because this very post helped me uncover my reasons for blogging at a more fundamental level.↩
Because who knows if this will ever be read by anyone other than me.↩
It goes without saying that I mean well-intentioned, deliberate thought, not the hateful stuff the internet has more than enough of.↩
I loved this post by Henrik Karlsson on how a blog can be seen as a way to find like-minded people across the internet.↩
I liked Ray’s post on the subject. Instead of hoarding your ideas or deleting them, he argues you should share them instead, no matter how incomplete. That way, others can grow them further.↩

Back to the Small Web

2026-01-29T19:38:30.364620+00:00

Five years ago I started blogging. I ran a Jekyll site, tried Medium, Dev.to and finally settled on Substack a few years ago. Recent insights made me reconsider—I’ve come full circle, back to a static site. Why? Because of the values of the so-called Small Web.

I encountered the term Small Web in a series of blog posts¹, I couldn’t put it out of my head. It resonated deeply; I wanted to be part of it.

What is the Small Web? Quite literally the antithesis of the Big Web. Whereas the Big Web is centralized and aimed at maximizing profits at the expense of its users, the Small Web is decentralized and all about openness, freedom and creative self-expression. But there’s more to it.

Simplicity and Minimalism

As Ben Hoyt mentions in his essay “The Small Web is Beautiful”, the Small Web differentiates itself with its simplicity and minimalism, focusing on content. Many sites on the Small Web are built with plain HTML, CSS whilst JavaScript is kept to a minimum. This results in fast load-times, low-bandwidth usage, high accessibility and an overall pleasant reader experience. There’s even a category of people taking this to the extreme with so-called “text-only” sites, which I agree on with Alban Brooke, have their own charm.

Along the way we seem to have forgotten that content is what it should be all about. Words impacting its readers. There are many flashy sites out there with tons of bells and whistles, but in the end it’s not the sleek design that makes readers come back to a site, it’s the content. I can think of no better way this has been said than in this hilarious piece of satire².

I made the same mistake. Five years ago, when I launched my blog I focused a lot on aesthetics, and wanted my blog to look good. Looking good to me meant lots of colors, images, emojis—all of it. I probably spent more time tweaking my blog’s looks than it’s content.

All that fancy stuff distracts me when I visit a site. Anything impeding my understanding of an author’s point should be removed. In fact, I do this a lot with Reader Mode in my browser. In this funny post Herman Martinus makes the point that Reader mode is a testimony to how horrible the modern web has become for written content. A sad truth indeed.

As for me, moving back to a static site gives me the control to bring my blog back to the essentials: my words.

Own It

Running a blog on a big-web platform like Substack or Medium is trivial, but you never own it. The content might be yours, but the platform is theirs. Their platform, their rules. Even if you like the platform now, you might not like its course in the future.

For instance, Medium has put up increasingly more paywalls over the years as well as put articles behind login walls. What if you want your content to be available to everyone? Or what if, like on Substack, there are these constant newsletter pop-ups or banners to download the app and you don’t want to annoy your readers with them?

You have to play by the platform’s rules. With any platform you’re in the passenger seat regarding where it’s heading, and you might not like where it goes.

As Aral Balkan says in his post on the Small Web:

On the Big Web, you never own your own home. You must rent your home from Megacorps. Most often, you don’t have to pay for your home using money. You pay for it by forfeiting your privacy, freedom of speech, and your other human rights. Collectively, we pay for it by forfeiting a democratic future.

And no, not all platforms are bad. For instance, a platform such as Bear Blog has a humanistic set of values and gets my endorsement.

Furthermore, these big platforms enable those without the know-how or need³ to own their blog to still share their genuine thoughts with the world. That in and of itself is worth a lot.

As for me, I want to own what I write. I want to decide what I can or cannot do with my content and my site.

DIY

Big tech platforms have an alluring proposition: they make things convenient. They make it trivial to publish content. You deliver the content, they take care of the technical stuff.

It works. You don’t have to worry about optimizing your site for performance⁴ or security. You don’t have to painstakingly create a design that works well on mobile and desktop, or handle any technical upgrades. In all honesty this is why I ditched my initial setup in the first place.

Convenient as this may be, it robs you of the opportunity to do things yourself. There’s a lot of fun to be had in a bit of DIY. Knowing exactly how your site works, building things just the way you like them, and learning a ton along the way. Doing it yourself makes it yours. You can take pride in it. If you’ve got the time and skill, tinkering with something that’s your own can be incredibly satisfying.

Despite not having as much time as I used to for tinkering on my site—having two kids will do that—I still enjoy it every once in a while. Right now I’m rolling with a stock Jekyll theme, but I intend to tinker with it or build something from scratch. The Small Web, perhaps because of its simplicity, makes it way more fun to play around with.

Privacy

In his essay “Against an Increasingly User-Hostile Web”, Parimal Satyal explains how the web has progressed technically, but declined morally. It’s lost its humanity. A particularly painful example of this is how the Big Web treats its users—you and me.

Much of the Big Web engages in so-called surveillance capitalism⁵. Surveillance capitalism is where the platform tracks your online activity in order to commoditize your personal data.

Why?

Because they can turn it into money—lots of it. Take Google for instance. The data they collect of your online activities is used to build an incredibly accurate personal profile, which they in turn sell to advertisers. These advertisers can then show hyper personalized ads.

We’ve become so accustomed to online tracking and surveillance capitalism that many people no longer consider it creepy, but simply as “the price to pay to enjoy online services.” It’s not okay though. Surveillance capitalism IS creepy, it is invasive and it is disrespectful to fellow human beings.

Platforms don’t start out disrespecting their users, but usually end up doing so through a process called “enshittification”. Cory Doctorow, who coined the term, describes the process as follows:

Here is how platforms die: first, they are good to their users; then they abuse their users to make things better for their business customers; finally, they abuse those business customers to claw back all the value for themselves. Then, they die.

Big blogging platforms aren’t as bad as the Google’s, Meta’s and Amazon’s of this world, but they still need data to operate. They need it to personalize your feeds, make tailored recommendations, and much more because these platforms thrive on engagement.

I would prefer not to⁶ partake in this creepy part of the web. Taking control back into my own hands allows me to choose privacy-friendly alternatives for my needs⁷, or get rid of things altogether⁸, such as annoying cookie notices and subscribe-to-the-newsletter pop-ups. In the end it’s about respect. Respect for those of you who spend your precious time reading what I write⁹.

Summary

When I initially drafted this essay I had no idea what it was about the Small Web that lighted a fire in me. During writing, as writing does, I realized what it was: I align with its humanity, openness and good intentions.

That’s why I decided to be a part of it with this blog. Though my site is but a speck of dust in the grand universe that is the internet, it’s still one that changed for the better. Here’s to a resurgence of the Small Web.

The rabbit hole opened for me at Kagi’s Small Web project, and it’s accompanying blog post. I’ve been reading a ton of small web posts via Kagi Small Web ever since, and wholeheartedly recommend it. Speaking of which, I’ve also been using the Kagi Search Engine for a few months now and have loved it from the start. Be sure to check it out!↩
If you’ve ever done any web development this will crack you up, I sure had a laugh. In all seriousness though, the piece has a point, we’ve made the web hard ourselves.↩
Yes, I realize I’m weird like that. Though if you’ve read this far I reckon you might be a little too. And, as it turns out there’s a big community of people who feel the same. Be sure to check out the Indieweb project.↩
Although, as we’ve seen, you could argue the complexity of optimizing web performance is a position we’ve gotten ourselves into in the first place.↩
A great book on the topic, and more specifically how the internet age impacts how we engage with each other, it’s effect on truth and even democracy itself is Byung-Chul Han’s Infocracy.↩
“I would prefer not to” has become the motto/meme of famed philosopher Slavoj Žižek. He uses it a stronger negation than “no”, rejecting the entire underlying system with it instead.↩
For instance instead of Google Analytics, I now use GoatCounter, a privacy-friendly alternative for basic site analytics. Just like GoatCounter’s Author Martin Tournoij mentions in this post, I’m also not interested in vanity metrics, but I do want to have some sense of my readership.↩
For instance, I no longer run comments on my site, and instead encourage readers to e-mail me. This sheds JavaScript, Cookies and comment-spam. I also no longer run a newsletter, but promote following me using my RSS feed.↩
Only slightly related, but I resonate a lot with Soophie Koonin’s post “This website is for humans” where she explains that AI is increasingly used to read content and serve it up (or gobble it up and regurgitate whatever it makes of it) to humans, instead of humans visiting the sites themselves. I too write to touch the heart of others, not some emotionless LLM utilized for profit.↩

On Thinking Your Own Thoughts

2026-01-29T19:40:44.806713+00:00

We live in an age where we are exposed to an incredible amount of information. Despite unprecedented access to information, I’d argue there's a dark side: we’re losing touch with our own thoughts. I believe the lack of space to think is to blame.

Grace fills empty spaces, but it can only enter where there is a void to receive it, and it is grace itself which makes this void. - Simone Weil

I’ve always had the inclination to become great at what I do. A drive to continuously improve. Being a naturally curious person, I look everywhere for information: articles, books, videos, forums—you name it. And although I’ve learned a lot along the way, I’ve experienced its downside firsthand: my search for knowledge made me consume so much information that I never stopped to hear my own thoughts. In a way, I felt like I was drowning in a sea of information, never quite able to come up for air. I overexposed myself to information.

Is all this exposure to information bad? No, we’re in the most privileged position in history—anything you want to know is at your fingertips. Just a few decades ago, if people needed information, they had to go to a library, find a bookstore, read an encyclopedia, call someone or some other cumbersome method. Information delivery is more convenient than ever, and that is an incredible achievement of humankind.

Not only that, we also have more forms of delivery than ever before. If you’re not one for books, then you can watch a video, listen to an audiobook, read a blog and yes, even threads on X and TikTok videos count. You can find information in any medium you prefer.

Lastly, the sheer volume of information has grown tremendously. With the advent of a medium such as the internet, the threshold to share information has lowered to the point of being non-existent. In the past, you’d have to be an established name to get an essay published¹, but now you can spin up a blog in minutes, or post your ideas to socials in seconds. Sharing information has never been easier.

Through these developments we can access more ideas, more conveniently than ever, and that’s a good thing—in order to grow, we need to be exposed to ideas other than our own. Whether it be factual knowledge, new perspectives, or stories, they all have the potential to stir up our existing beliefs, to transform us ever so slightly. Not all transformation can come from within.

I like to imagine the mind as a pond², where your deepest thoughts—the original ones—reside near the bottom, like Koi carp. To see them, the surface must be crystal clear, like a mirror into your soul. External ideas are like pebbles thrown into the pond—they stir the surface and make Koi come out of hiding. However, they will only appear when the coast is clear, and the stones stop falling. Even then, we can only see them if the ripples on the surface have receded. We need space between ideas to let our thoughts emerge.

Denying yourself that space is doing yourself a disservice. Without it, you’ll never truly learn how you as an individual with unique perspectives think about something. You might mistake the ripples on the surface for the Koi. In the process, you’ll rob yourself of getting to know yourself, remaining estranged to the one person you ought to know best.

Once we’ve exposed ourselves to new ideas we need space to digest them. To make ideas our own we need to give them some time to marinate, to hold them up to what we already know, reconsider perspectives, assimilate what is useful, and disregard what is not. If we keep rushing to the next idea, we never allow our thoughts to fully form or ideas to take root.

Creating space for our thoughts allows us to scrutinize them. We can consider their validity and view them from different viewpoints. For instance, you can come up with counterarguments, or ask investigating questions to see if the idea still holds up, like with the Socratic Method³. This will deepen your understanding of the concept, hone arguments and find their breaking point.

We therefore find ourselves in a precarious balancing act: disturb the pond just enough. Once we were starved for information, limited by its availability. Now the limiting factor is our minds⁴. We’ve gone from a trickle of information to quench our thirst to a fire hose put to our lips. Thankfully we control the lever — somewhat at least. It does require awareness, and knowing your limits.

With information never far removed from us, and countless companies trying to get a hold of your attention, we must be vigilant. If we are not intentional about our exposure to information we run the risk of getting overwhelmed and being influenced, like a wave washing over us whilst carrying us in a direction we might not have intended. We should act and actively resist information forced upon us and choose what we let into our lives.

As for me, I’ve tuned down my exposure to new information substantially. It worked out well for me. I’m calmer, happier, and have learned to appreciate my own “voice.” I feel like I can breathe more freely, allowing myself to come up for air more often and for longer periods of time. The internet is full of strategies to create this breathing room, but for me taking a walk, journaling, and writing work wonders, as does reading fiction rather than non-fiction. Each of us is different, and you’ll have to discover what works for you, but feel free to experiment.

Make space for your thoughts. Allow them to emerge, listen to them and make them your own. For if we don’t create space for reflection, we risk passively absorbing ideas without truly understanding or owning them.

Graham, P. (2004, September). The Age of the Essay. https://www.paulgraham.com/essay.html↩
This metaphor was inspired by one shared by a friend on how he imagines meditation.↩
The Socratic Method was originally a method of dialogue between individuals, but can be applied as an internal dialogue as well. I wholeheartedly recommend reading The Socratic Method by Ward Farnsworth if, like me, you enjoy this type of subject.↩
Often referred to as Information Overload.↩