I've been blogging for a while now, and if you've spent any time reading through my posts, you might have noticed something: there's no unifying theme. One day I'm writing about migrating to NixOS, the next I'm reviewing a 1997 BBC radio adaptation of a werewolf film in four hours of hyperfixation, and then I'm reflecting on pattern recognition and neurodivergency. It's a bit all over the place, isn't it?

This isn't an accident. It's not poor planning or lack of focus. It's entirely intentional, and I think it's time I explained why.

The Myth of the Niche

There's this pervasive advice in blogging circles that you need a niche. Pick a lane, they say. Be the "tech blog" or the "personal development blog" or the "werewolf media analysis blog" (okay, maybe that last one is too specific). The logic is sound enough: a focused blog attracts a focused audience, which theoretically makes it easier to build a following.

But here's the thing – I'm not trying to build a following in the traditional sense. I'm not monetising this blog, I'm not selling courses, and I'm not trying to position myself as an authority on any single topic. This blog exists because I have thoughts, and sometimes those thoughts need more than 300 characters to fully form.

My blog has no theme because I have no single theme. I'm a 20-year-old guy with multiple special interests, ongoing mental health struggles, a love for tinkering with technology, and a deep fascination with lycanthropy. Why should I have to choose which part of myself gets to exist online?

(besides truly personal matters, of course. i'm not an idiot.

The Personal Website as Digital Garden

I think of my blog less as a publication and more as a digital garden – a space that grows organically, sometimes in unexpected directions. Some plants (posts) are carefully cultivated over days, while others spring up spontaneously because I had a thought at 02:00 that needed to be written down immediately.

The beauty of having your own domain – in my case, ewancroft.uk – is that you're not beholden to anyone's expectations. There's no editorial board demanding consistency, no algorithm that needs feeding, no audience demographic to maintain. It's just... mine.

This freedom is particularly important when you're using the AT Protocol ecosystem. My blog posts live on my Personal Data Server, get published through Leaflet, and are syndicated to my main website. The content is portable, the infrastructure is decentralised, and the voice is entirely my own. No platform can dictate what I write about or how I write it within reason.

Embracing the Eclectic

I used to worry about this lack of focus. Would people be confused? Would they show up expecting technical content and be disappointed by creative writing? Would my deeply personal reflections on mental health alienate readers who came for the rants?

Then I realised: those are all the same person. I'm all those things simultaneously. The person who knows how to code in multiple programming and mark-up languages is also the person who writes poetry and can identify Azerbaijan's flag in under a second... for some reason. blame my vexillology hyperfixation in 2020. Pretending otherwise would be dishonest.

There's something liberating about letting your blog or social media posts reflect the full spectrum of who you are. When I write about setting up Tailscale on my Mac, that's me. When I write about watching Wolfblood as a kid and eventually realising I was a furry, that's also me. When I share a "now" status saying I'm "feeling iffy" or "very drunk," that's me being honest about the messy bits of existence.

The Readers Who Stay

Here's what I've learned: the readers who stick around are the ones who appreciate the eclecticism. They're not here for a narrow band of content; they're here for the voice. They want to see how I think, how I connect disparate ideas, how I approach problems both technical and existential.

My most popular posts aren't necessarily the most focused ones. The blog post about my year on Bluesky resonated because it was honest and reflective. The Leaflet migration diary worked because I walked through my failures alongside my successes. The review of An American Werewolf in London's radio adaptation connected because you could feel my genuine enthusiasm for the medium.

What ties these together isn't topic – it's authenticity.

Writing for Future Me

If I'm being completely honest, this blog isn't really for you (though I'm glad you're here reading). It's primarily for me. Specifically, it's for future me.

I write to process thoughts, to document technical solutions I'll inevitably forget, to capture moments of growth and struggle. My blog is part journal, part knowledge base, part creative outlet. When I look back at posts from six months ago, I see how I've changed – both as a person and as a writer.

This only works if I allow myself to write about anything that matters to me in that moment. A themed blog would be a filtered version of myself, and filtered versions don't make for good records of personal growth.

This helps me water the Yew tree, so-to-speak. Despite its nature of regeneration, it has wilted.

The Technical Enables the Personal

There's something poetic about using cutting-edge decentralised technology to publish deeply personal, un-themed content. The AT Protocol gives me the technical freedom to own my data and control my presence, which in turn gives me the creative freedom to write whatever I want.

I can migrate between platforms (as I did from WhiteWind to Leaflet) without losing my content. I can experiment with static site generation, dynamic Open Graph images, and client-side rendering, all while knowing my posts remain fundamentally mine. The technology serves the writing, not the other way around.

This matters because it means I never have to compromise my voice for platform requirements. I don't need to game an algorithm or conform to a content strategy. I just need to write honestly.

The Freedom to Wander

Some of my best posts have come from letting my mind wander. I'll start writing about one thing and end up somewhere completely different. The post about patterns and neurodivergency began as a reflection on memorising my DID and evolved into a meditation on thanatophobia and special interests.

These tangents work because I always loop back. I might digress about linguistics or mention my hatred of Christmas creep, but there's usually a thread connecting it all. Even when there isn't, that's okay too. Life doesn't have neat narrative arcs, so why should a blog?

Conclusion: The Theme Is Me

So no, my blog doesn't have a theme in the traditional sense. It doesn't fit neatly into a category or target a specific audience demographic. It's messy and personal and occasionally contradictory, because that's what being human is like – even when you're up in the clouds.

But if you insist on finding a theme, here it is: this blog is about me – my growth, my interests, my struggles, my experiments, my voice. It's about writing in public without pretence, sharing knowledge without gatekeeping, and being vulnerable without seeking validation.

It's about refusing to compress a multifaceted person into a single-topic blog for the sake of algorithmic convenience.