Bear blog challenge...again!
Background
More than a year ago, when I started my now defunct blog, I did the Bear Blog challenge that Ava made. I had a great ton of fun, but I've since realized that when I was migrating some posts from Obsidian and my blog, I had lost the copy of that initial post.
I wanted to try it again, as I think it's quite a fun one to reflect on.
Why did you make the blog in the first place?
I wanted a permanent place to store the random bits of interest I had. Social media was fun, but after a while, I was starting to burn out from looking at the feeds of these apps. Especially Instagram. Blogging, especially when it comes to longer-form posts or even challenges like these, helps me reflect and think through the content of what I want to say and how I would try to convey a thought, idea, suggestion, etc.
Why did you choose Bearblog?
There were plenty of platforms that were booming when I first joined Bearblog, but I think what really convinced me was taking a look at Bear's discovery page. Before I started a blog myself, I went into a rabbit hole of looking at different types of blog posts. I saw that the community around the platform is generally friendly, open, and welcoming to new users to this small world of the IndieWeb.
It is also one of the few platforms that had a generous free plan. Any new user can write as many posts as they want and do 90% of what you would want a simple blogging platform to do. Moreover, the sole creator, Herman, has two great articles that I think should be mandatory reading for anyone who is using Bear or is considering it. First would be Bear's manifesto and how Herman views his product.
Feature-wise, Bear is simple enough to use and fast on desktop and mobile. It's also complex enough to do what I need while not needing too much tinkering to get it to work how I want it to.
Have you blogged on other platforms before?
Yes! I used to use Tumblr to post short reviews of books I've read and to store quotes from media. It was fun but felt too integrated into the more “social-media” aspect of the platform.
I had a short-lived music review blog on Blogger when I was in high school but found that Blogger's editor and stock theme options were too limiting and did not appeal to me. That was scrapped pretty quickly.
Do you write your posts directly in the editor or in another software?
I prefer to use different software; in my case, it would be Obsidian. The platform has all the hotkeys I need to format posts how I like, and bonus points as it also uses Markdown for its syntax. So, it's mostly a matter of copying and pasting to the editor, and it looks great on the blog with minimal to no editing.
For the images, I either host them on ImgBB when I post them onto Obsidian using a 3rd-party plugin, or I host them on Bear itself and link it manually.
When do you feel most inspired to write?
When I'm reading content made by another person, perhaps a blogger or from a book I'm reading. In my head I find myself responding to the content, and when I remember to do so, I'll try to take notes and store them for later.
I am, however, guilty of not revisiting these notes, so sometimes they do sort of wither and die after that moment.
Do you publish immediately after writing or do you let it simmer a bit as a draft?
I prefer to let it simmer. Especially if it's something more personal, I prefer it to sit in my scheduled posts for a few days ahead. If I don't feel too much hesitancy about the content, I let it publish itself when the day comes.
Your favorite post on your blog?
Probably my notes on Thomas Curran's The Perfection Trap. This one was one of the first few articles I was proud of, written back in early 2025, while I was still contemplating my thesis's topic area.
It serves as a great introductory text to perfectionism and the different measures that exist, but more importantly, it gave some interesting (and alarming) statistics collected from Curran & Co.'s own research alongside others cited about the increasing perfectionism levels around the world. Especially socially prescribed perfectionism. This ended up becoming one of the variables I used in my study.
The post is more of a reflective one, but it's one of the posts that I don't regret writing the way I did much.
Any future plans for your blog? Maybe a redesign, changing the tag system, etc.?
Nothing too complicated, but I would love to add a Colophon section and a Blogroll.
I'm also contemplating setting up a quotes page that would display posts (actual posts and not a list of the titles) tagged “#quotes” as a sort of collection. I have a large collection of quotes pulled from my Kindle clippings and elsewhere in a CSV file that I would love to store somewhere in the public.
Mostly, I hope to post as often as I can!
Tag! You're it :)
If you're reading this or discovered my post and have not been tagged, I encourage you to fill this up! I would absolutely love to read it.
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