nsashaell: (Default)
[personal profile] nsashaell
That's probably the most cliche journal entry title of all time, but there you go. It's appropriate because we are in the process of revamping our online presence, and this blog is a big part of that. We've noticed that plurals have a way of dropping off the internet after awhile, when life gets busier, spoons get lower, drama gets too dramatic, or all of the above. It's worse, I think, when you're over-committed to begin with.

When we joined the online plural community around 8 years ago, we were younger, enthusiastic, way more opinionated, and didn't have much of an offline life due to recovering from a long illness. This was a perfect recipe for over-commitment. We helped found Plurality Resource Forum, created our own website with a large number of youtube videos that accumulated over the years, participated in other forums and got involved with plural activism. And then our life slowly transformed for the better, with new goals, responsibilities, and opportunities beyond the internet, in large part due to community support and encouragement. Slowly, we stopped having time to run PRF or update our own website, even as PRF became more and more our own responsibility. We had less time to make videos, and then took all of them down in order to safeguard our new career. And the guilt for not taking proper care of our online presence grew. Conflict rose within the system about what information should be online, because we didn't want our new career goals to be affected by our previous online presence, but we didn't want to drop off the internet, either.

At the same time, we have all been maturing, and previous stances we had taken and lines we had drawn seemed harsh. The things we had to say before about ourselves, like who in the system prefers which movies, seemed less important, and we began to have completely different things to say. We began to accumulate a list of topics we want to write essays on, but had no time to write them. We began to hate our website format. Our older writings didn't seem very good anymore. Meanwhile, new developments in the system weren't reflected on the website anymore, like our growing identification with transness or our rapidly expanding psychology knowledge or our shifting fronting schedule strategies.

So with the new decade comes a new way of relating to the world. Our website is deleted, plurality resource.org is shifting to new ownership, and PRF is going to be closed (likely Jan. 31st, though that's subject to change). Instead, we will have this, and only this, to manage for now, and it can be a fresh start.

We plan to have several system members post as regularly as we can, about thoughts or discussions we're having about plurality in general, our own experiences, and life updates. Next entry, which will be posted sometime this week, will be an intro about who we are and what we're currently up to.

-Shawn of Nsashaell System

Date: 2020-01-07 12:15 am (UTC)
hungryghosts: A creature composed of many masks upon one shadowy body draped in a red fabric. (Default)
From: [personal profile] hungryghosts
You've really described the over-commitment phenomenon really well. I think a lot of young systems get so excited about finally finding people like them that the energy kind of... spills over? There's the desire to do something paired with finally having an outlet, a Cause for that desire.

We really hope Dreamwidth can be a much more relaxed place for you all. We really like it because structurally, it feels like it has much less of an emphasis on Producing Content For Public Consumption. Having entries that are just for you, or just for your friends is normal and expected and supported. It's a much slower and much more gentle pace.
Edited Date: 2020-01-07 12:15 am (UTC)

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