Dries Buytaert

My blog turns 20 today!

I have been at this for two decades now, yet I still don't identify as a blogger. It feels awkward to say the words: I am a blogger.

Probably because I started writing to think out loud. I never set out to be a blogger. And honestly, I still feel like I'm figuring the whole thing out.

My history with blogging actually goes back 25 years. Before this site, I started Drop.org, where I shared ideas and experimented with concepts that eventually led me to create Drupal. Drupal 1.0 even included a feature called "public diaries". We didn't call it "blogging" back then, but that is what it was.

The irony was that Drupal was powering personal blogs around the world, while my own site was still a few static HTML files.

At DrupalCon Amsterdam in 2005, Steven Wittens called me out on it. Steven was the number two in Drupal at the time. He proposed a bet: if I did not launch a Drupal-powered site before January 1, 2006, I would owe him a Duvel. If I did, he would owe me one.

I wrote my first post on December 31, 2005 with less than a day to spare. I don't remember if I ever collected that Duvel, but I haven't stopped writing.

In the early years, I would post short thoughts on a whim. Social media did not exist yet, so there was almost nothing between a thought and my Publish button. Today, those quick thoughts often end up on social media instead, although I have mostly stepped away from it. More people read what I write now, so a new post can take me hours instead of minutes.

I removed analytics from my site long ago. I do not want to write for page views, nor do I want to invade your privacy. My site aspires to the privacy of a physical book.

I write to discover and connect with people. But one thing has never changed: I am a terrible judge of what will connect. The posts I polish the longest often get little attention, while the ones I nearly talk myself out of publishing are the ones people share. I have stopped trying to explain this, but it reminds me that I do not get to decide what matters to others. Maybe the polishing takes something away. Maybe the risky ones carry an honesty that others can feel.

I love that writing in public has a way of keeping you honest. Ideas that seem solid in my head can fall apart the moment I try to explain them. I have changed my mind more than once simply by trying to put my thoughts into words.

But the writing is only half of it. The best part happens after you press publish.

Blogging starts conversations with people I have never met. Blog posts become invitations that never expire. They wait patiently for the right moment to be found. Someone reads an old post, reaches out, and suddenly we are talking. Even in person, conversations start more easily because people already have a sense of who I am or what I care about.

My attention to this blog has gone up and down over the years. Work pulled me away. Travel pulled me away. But I always come back. Writing in public gives me something I do not get anywhere else.

It is strange to think this all traces back to that Duvel bet. My site still runs Drupal of course, which must make it one of the oldest Drupal-powered sites.

Some of you have been reading since the beginning. Many found your way here much later. I am grateful for all of you. Thank you for making this feel like a conversation instead of a monologue.

I plan to keep writing here as long as I can. If you have been reading for a while, I would love to hear from you. Even a simple hello means a lot.