Late 17th Birthday Thoughts
Tags: birthday, personalthoughts
Published: 2023-04-15 15:08:53

---
title: Late 17th Birthday Thoughts
published: true
date: 2023-02-02 16:50:29 UTC
tags: birthday,personalthoughts
canonical_url: https://ajhalili2006.substack.com/p/birthday-thoughts-2023
---

Well, hello there 👋! It’s good to be back here on Medium writing for my 17th birthday, although I also cross-posted this in my personal Substack (sorry for this if that’s unexpected to you, read more why) and I do also have a bit of my personal thoughts for this birthday by the way.

![Banner and social preview for this post, made via Canva](https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/1024/1*Ezxn2CaSDLA3yg2D157rcA.png)
_Paper cutouts over a blue background by Daniel Enamorado from Pexels with the title of the post for Andrei Jiroh’s blog, made with Canva. Used for social previews and as featured photo when shared within Medium._

### So why I stopped writing suddenly in Medium?

You know the drill, school and my busy work as a squad lead and all-rounder software developer/maintainer/DevOps engineer hellscapes at [Recap Time Squad](https://recaptime.bio.link) and also on [my own](https://mau.dev/ajhalili2006) [side projects](https://mau.dev/ajhalili2006-experiments). I still wrote a bit on [my WordPress.com blog](https://ajhalili2006.wordpress.com) lately through before December when [I started](https://ajhalili2006.substack.com/p/status-update-2022-08) [writing](https://ajhalili2006.substack.com/p/status-update-2022-11) on [my personal Substack](https://ajhalili2006.substack.com).

I would like to also bring in [The Bloody Hell PH](https://fromthebshq.carrd.co) as a separate publication in Medium, but I probably need to pay for subscription just to do that now, and that’s a lot I missed here since the last time I write anything here.

### The elephant in the room: Why Substack then

So why Substack over something as holy grail as [Ghost](https://ghost.org)? I want subscriptions to be an integral part of my blog/newsletter/future podcast instead of yet another WordPress plugin to set up (which you need a paid plan for WP.com users), and support data portability of my content and my subscriber list. I also want to start with the basics first before blowing things up with the backend pain of self-hosting and Linux homelabs.

Still unconvinced? In [the comparison page](https://ghost.org/vs/substack/), both of them are considered as [Open Subscription Platforms](https://opensubscriptionplatforms.com/) for bloggers and online writers (tl;dr: data portability and the use of Stripe Connect for payment processing), but the latter can be self-hosted on your own if Ghost(Pro) Starter plan is not for you. In contrast, Medium falls short in data portability and also branding, even if I spotted [hints about Stripe on their support articles](https://help.medium.com/hc/en-us/articles/115011694187#h_01EECWED4KQBZQBBW76JMPTEBG).

Sure, I could just f\*\*k paywalls and paid subscriptions and publish all of my blog posts as web3 content on [mirror.xyz](https://mirror.xyz) as [collectible writing NFTs](https://dev.mirror.xyz/5gt60vKFJZ_tR1BjoJ7-Y0sNw7REebStHjzFU5x73J0) for Ethereum users (my content minus media and third-party $#!t are licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0 International, IDK if Medium choose to stay at 3.0 Unported if I set the licensing details, sent them a support ticket anyway for clarification, but I might consider do dual-licensing soon) and also immutable over at [Arweave](https://www.arweave.org/), which we might have [GDPR](https://www.ibm.com/blogs/systems/what-does-gdpr-mean-for-blockchain-technologies/#:~:text=In%20addition%2C%20%E2%80%9Cshared%20ledger%20technology%2C%E2%80%9D%20which%20is%20an,When%20they%20request%20this%2C%20companies%20need%20to%20comply.) [related](https://medium.com/blockco/gdpr-and-blockchain-dcfbda0c21a3) [problems](https://www.europarl.europa.eu/stoa/en/document/EPRS_STU(2019)634445) (might not be same situation if we forget about blockchains for storage and just use something like [Storj](https://storj.io)or even [IPFS](https://ipfs.tech)), but considering trust issues relating to NFTs (look at [Web3 is Going Just Great](https://web3isgoinggreat.com/) for examples of this type of internet $#!tf\*\*kery) and also environmental considerations to the hellscape you wish didn’t dig up because of me.

For most writers in Medium, especially for those who writing relentlessly since time emporium, the one-subscription-to-rule-them-all is fine with some drawbacks, including, as mentioned earlier, the data portability hell. I mean, you got your mailing list for your newsletter, but it will be a PITA to completely move out due to networks effect.

The only holdback that I have with Substack right now is that I can’t write posts and manage publications within the mobile app, other than subscriber’s chat (which is also exclusive to their mobile apps if you want to enable it), which is kinda annoying to fire up the browser and painfully edit things in a small factor.

### Okay, back to the main topic. How’s your birthday (or week)?

You know, the usual school work (plus the periodical exams) and then some. On January 23 and 24, I did some non-alcoholic recipes in the house, not only for our shop (currently Barista/Bartendering, but I prefer to call it the former for legal reasons related to [hard minimum age requirement on alcoholic drinks](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legal_drinking_age#:~:text=cities.%5B105%5D-,Philippines,-None)) but also as a personal treat for that two-day period other than the[weekly mixtape](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/4QmYRBYk5lsd10MU975uTj?si=3dfc0c03e5a64d88) I did full of music released under Epidemic Sound while in [Spotify Premium Mini](https://support.spotify.com/ph-en/article/premium-mini/). Surely, my shop teacher is slowly being traumatized on how do I use the knife against the mangoes (Don’t worry, I didn’t accidentally cut myself in the process. I know, it’s painful to see the footage, especially for first timers and those who don’t usually prep/cook food at home.).

### What do I wish and want to do for myself this year?

As mentioned in [my 2022 year-end reflection and what’s in the plan this year](https://ajhalili2006.substack.com/i/98197518/whats-in-store-for), I wish for better mental health, self-esstem and self-confidence for myself, lessen my suffering in silence from my self-hatred and a corrupted self-image (also known as “beating myself up harder every time I f\*\*k things up” and the anxiety + trauma I carry over the years plus the mental “[2 Minutes Hate](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two_Minutes_Hate)” (reference from [George Orwell’s 1984](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nineteen_Eighty-Four), but it’s longer and more minutely/hourly) if internalized ableism is also considered)

There are also things I want to do this year that are boldly wished I did in the past years but didn’t due to pandemic (among other reasons), but I might need to reprioritize and reconsider things to at least thrive (not just survive) in senior high school, rebalance life and work and also for mental health reasons.

### So that’s it, folks!

While it didn’t make it to publish before January 2023 ends because I’m watching the first season of Mr. Robot lately in full (not through the YouTube clips from the [official show channel](https://youtube.com/@MrRobot)) and some open source project maintenance chores while migrating repos to [~tulir](https://mau.fi/)’s [GitLab instance](https://mau.dev/explore/projects) + [sourcehut](https://sr.ht) (the hosted one) while playing Måneskin‘s [DON’T WANNA SLEEP](https://www.last.fm/user/ajhalili2006/library/music/M%C3%A5neskin/_/DON%27T+WANNA+SLEEP) and [READ YOUR DIARY](https://www.last.fm/user/ajhalili2006/library/music/M%C3%A5neskin/_/READ+YOUR+DIARY) on loop, I might start write a bit more for the coming months, but don’t expect anything because life sometimes hit me like a bus, assuming we’re talking about the bus factor. Hopefully I could handle the burnout during the sembreak, so I don’t think about “[abandoning the children](https://wiki.andreijiroh.uk.eu.org/wiki/Abandoning_the_children)” (I mean projects and maybe my own community, I’m not [~mikedmoy](https://go.recaptime.eu.org/mikedmoy) btw.).

_This content is originally written and_ [_posted in Medium_](https://ajhalili2006.page.link/birthday-thouhgts-2023) _and also available in_ [_Substack_](https://ajhalili2006.page.link/birthday-thouhgts-2023-substack) _and as_ [_plaintext_](https://ajhalili2006.page.link/birthday-thouhgts-2023-plaintext) _in lists.sr.ht. As much as I love to read comments in each of these platforms, I would prefer and even recommend sending me a plaintext email to my public inbox, as mentioned below._

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