Creating a Personal Blog, Pseudobeliefs, and Books

I’ve been blogging on and off for several years, but I’ve never stuck with one platform for very long. Substack is probably my longest existing blog, but I’m not sure if that counts since I haven’t published anything on there in over a year. I haven’t abandoned it. I promise. In fact, I think about what my next post will be almost every single fucking day.It’s odd. My very first post on Substack was about my struggles with writing online because I felt like my voice was just adding pollution to the cacophony of online voices. It’s odd because I thought I’d be over it by now. That I would find my place online where I fit comfortably, where I’d be confident in sharing what I have to say, where I wouldn’t second guess every single post I publish. But no, I’m not over it. Those same fears exist. I think they actually multiplied.

But still I write. I write because there is a tiny little flame within me that just won’t fucking die. A flame of belief that I have something unique, something worth existing out there somewhere.

Yes, I know. It’s really not that serious. Just fucking write. Or don’t write. Either way, nobody really cares. But such is the way of being human. I’m the center of my universe, and I happen to care. But oh god, I wish I didn’t care. So why did I create this little blog? It’s my little piece of the Internet. No SEO. No algorithms. No push notifications. Of course, you probably stumbled upon this blog from my Substack, so it would be very hypocritical of me to rage against social media. So that’s not what I’m doing. I realize the utility and necessity of social media if I want my writing to reach somebody.

And yes, despite my worries I shared above, I do in fact want my writing to reach somebody. But I will continue to be mindful of what kind of writing I push to others. It’s my hope that this blog will exist as a space where you can find me because you wanted to find me. Not because it showed up on your newsfeed or inbox, but maybe because you saw some of my essays on Substack and were curious for more.

My intention isn’t to infantilize you dear readers. I assume you’re old enough and smart enough to moderate your own media consumption. But I know what it’s like to feel like your attention has been hijacked and the last thing I want is for someone to think that I wasted their attention.

I don’t know if any of that made sense to you. I’m still trying to make sense of it myself.

I think this post is worth reading. Pinsof argues that most of our beliefs our actually pseudobeliefs: we don’t actually believe most of what we think we believe.

Pinsof gave a word for what I too had noticed during my religious deconditioning.* If Christians really believe what they preach, then they sure as hell don’t act like they do.** For example, Christians believe in heaven and hell, but I don’t think most Christians actually believe in heaven or hell. Heaven is supposed to be an eternal realm of perfect peace and unity with God. If we really believed in such a realm of absolute perfection, then we would live very differently. We would be excited to die. After all, our imperfect lives on this earth are merely a blink in comparison to an eternity in heaven. We wouldn’t try to hoard material wealth. And I’m not going to get into whether or not heaven is real. My point is, whether or not heave is actually real, most Christians don’t really act like they really believe its real.

I can go on and on about all the different pseudobeliefs that Christians hold, but that would take many more words than I’m willing to write right now. Perhaps someday, that would be an interesting topic to tackle. Once I was able to take a step back from my beliefs, I began to realize that I didn’t actually believe a lot of things that I thought I believed. It felt like a huge slap in the face from the universe.

*At least I think he’s the first to use the term “pseudobeliefs,” but please correct me if I’m wrong.

**Yes, I know that Christianity has many denominations and that not every Christian believes the same doctrines.

I thought I’d share some books that I’m currently reading or planning to start reading real soon. I am truly undisciplined when it comes reading and I tend to hop around between different books. This picture only shows physical books, but I have more lined up on Libby/Kindle. I don’t finish every book I start, so it’s likely that I won’t finish most of these books. But a girl can dream and thank god for libraries.

Especially now that I tend to read more non-fiction than fiction, I don’t like to waste my time on books that don’t intrigue me. That doesn’t mean that the book is bad. It just means it’s not what I need right now. I’ll often come back to a book that I abandoned months or years ago and ask myself, “Why didn’t I read this sooner?!”