I recently saw a post on Hacker News 0 where someone asked whether it still makes sense to start a blog in 2025, now that AI is everywhere and can write faster and cleaner than most humans. It’s a reasonable question, and I feel like talking about it.
If writing is only about output quality, efficiency, or novelty, one probably shouldn’t have a personal blog. But that question assumes something about writing that I don’t believe is true. It assumes writing exists to impress, to teach, to exhibit, or to prove competence. That is not why I write.
I write to express.
In the twenty-first century, expression is not just a right or a desire. It is a responsibility. Everybody should write. Even people I strongly disagree with. Especially them. You cannot deny the universe whatever half-baked, incoherent, or unfinished nonsense you carry inside you. What feels like gibberish to you might land as clarity for someone else.
I’m an expert
Lol. There’s a deeply broken idea floating around that only experts deserve to speak on the internet, as if legitimacy comes from degrees, titles, or years of experience. Bullshit. Thought does not require permission. If I have a thought I believe in, I’ll say it. If someone challenges me and convinces me otherwise, I’ve learned something. That’s not a loss. That’s the point.
Let corporations and universities worry about credentials. If they find what I say valuable, they’ll pay me. If they don’t, they’ll ignore me. Worst case, they’ll fire me. None of that strips me of the right to express an opinion.
Part of why I write is simpler than philosophy. I want to own a space on the internet. A real one. Not something shaped by algorithms, gimmicks, or invisible pressure to behave correctly. Like a house. A place people can find me. A place I can run the way I want, neglect if I feel like it, rebuild when things change, or just sit quietly in without explanation. A blog is not a platform to me. It is not a distribution channel. It is a home on the internet.
Taking a stance
Writing demands courage, whether people admit it or not. The moment you publish something, you take ownership of your thoughts. You put your name next to them. You take a stance. And the internet is brutal. Faceless users, zero context, instant judgement. Before writing, you fight fear: fear of being misunderstood, fear of being judged, fear of being wrong. Writing anyway is courage. Not loud courage. Quiet courage.
One of the most underrated aspects of writing publicly is that it leaves behind old versions of you. You get to see yourself change. I once wrote a post about how much I despised writing with AI. Today, I use AI for almost everything. That doesn’t bother me. I took a stance. I was wrong. I learned. I changed. Growth is change. Having proof of your past self can be embarrassing, but it’s also beautiful. I’ll write separately abt how I use AI in my writing process.
On sharing
There’s also a more intimate reason I write. When I experience something deeply, I feel an urge to share it. I call friends. I call my girlfriend. I call family. And sometimes, I write. Most of what I write never becomes an essay or a blog post. It ends up as fragments in a journal—slitnotes I write just to contain a moment before it slips away. Not for a personal brand, not to squeeze content out of life, but to make sense of what I felt.
Later, sometimes, many of these fragments come together into something coherent. I don’t know if everyone feels this, but when something hits me, I want to give it away. That line from Into the Wild captures it perfectly:
Happiness is only real when it’s shared.
I think the more you share, the more real happiness get.
Connecting with your own brand
Writing also forces you to confront yourself. Who you are. What your vibe is. What you actually stand for. It sharpens your brand to yourself first, and maybe to others someday. Early writing is messy and undirected. That’s normal. Over time, patterns show up. Beliefs sharpen. Writing reveals what you actually think, not what you’d like to believe you think. It becomes a mirror. Sometimes flattering. Often uncomfortable. An honest brand.
People get weird about the word “brand.” They associate it with pretending or being fake. I think that’s lazy thinking. A brand is just your vibe. Everyone has one, whether they like it or not. Even refusing to care projects something. Even choosing to be unkempt and indifferent projects something. A blog is not about manufacturing an identity. It’s about letting who you are be visible. That visibility is polarising. Some people will dislike you. Some will resonate deeply. That’s the cost of honesty.
Even Buddha, the epitome of detachment and nirvan, had a brand, and he worked all his life towards it. He honed it by walking the world and sharing himself. I’m no Buddha. But I do believe in connecting with myself and putting myself out there so I’m held accountable to stand by what I think and what I express.
Fuck being unique
For a long time, I didn’t write because of a few recurring questions. I’m nobody, why would anyone read this? I’m not bringing anything unique to the table. What do I even get out of it? All of these dissolve once you stop trying to be unique. In hindsight, trying to be unique feels like a lame idea. Every human being is already unique, unequivocally. Having to try to be unique, especially in expression, feels almost pathetic.
Most ideas that hit us aren’t new. They arrive at the right time, in the right words, from the right voice. I’d heard forever that chasing status is pointless. It only really landed when Naval put it simply in his Twitter thread 1. The idea wasn’t new. The perspective was. My mother told me to wake up early my entire life. When I later read The Miracle Morning, the same idea was framed differently, and it finally clicked. Same idea. Different expression.
It’s never really about being unique. It’s not about expertise or preaching. It’s about expression. If someone benefits from my writing, that’s an awesome side effect, and I’d be genuinely be flattered. But otherwise, my blog is my home on the internet - a place where I show up as I am, think out loud, leave traces of who I was, and make sense of things as I go.
And that’s enough.
References
- [0] Ask HN: Is starting a personal blog worth it in the age of AI? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46268055
- [1] Naval Ravikant – How to get rich without getting lucky https://x.com/naval/status/1002103360646823936