One of my gripes with internet creators is their speed with which they denounce the previous work they completed.
I have seen so many people uproot everything they had previously created, so as not to associate with that "previous version of themselves" - and I can see the headspace in doing so; kill that last version completely and all that jazz.
But - the thing that I have come to enjoy is the "cringe" of reading that previous me, and seeing how the thought patterns, the beliefs, have led me to where I am today. I can go back and literally trace the moment I thought it was all meaningless, the moment I nearly lost my mind, the moment I came to Christ, the moment I am in right now as I virtually pen this very sentence.
It is a special kind of nostalgia that one can experience firsthand over and over. I read journal entries and laugh, or cry. I even read things I posted on this very site and think about where I was when I had written them, about how wrong I was, or about how that thing has become integral to my life.
This is why writing in plain text is so important - I started really writing about 11 years ago and I still have access to that writing. I used Evernote and MicroSOFT Onenote for a bit of that period, but quickly realized that those companies (however impossible we may think it to be) could be gone tomorrow, and so too would the writings and thoughts that I had penned in their apps.
I moved everything to plain text in vim about 6-7 years ago, and have not looked back. I went from plain text to markdown to finally, and forever, org mode in emacs. My writing is version controlled, and I can see the progress of any given piece at any time. I wrote my first book in version control using org-mode, exported and formatted it with LateX, and literally shipped that exported PDF to hundreds of people. I uploaded that same PDF to KDP via Amazon, and they printed it so that one could physically touch the book.
I became a published author all because of plaintext - org mode and emacs.
I have access to all that writing, all those memories, all those places I have gone cognitively, spiritually, physically. I read things from 6 years ago and see how I was figuring it all out, from when my daughter was born and how I had nothing at all figured out, and so on.
So - don't delete your work. Show the world who you once were, where you are now, and where you are going. Continue to hit publish, continue to push things out there, and maybe, just maybe, it will help someone along the way.
Edit: with the magic of the WaybackMachine, I give you my blog from 2014.
Please refrain from making too much fun of my 21 year old self 🤣.
As always, God bless, and until next time.
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