This post, which I’ve already written, discusses my changing relationship with the Open Web over the twenty years I’ve been blogging. Using the lens of Michel de Montaigne’s Essays, which was a form of proto-blogging, I explore the value of sharing things openly.
Link to the post: https://dougbelshaw.com/blog/2025/11/04/things-change-or-montaigne-and-the-open-web/
Session Resources:
https://dougbelshaw.com/blog/tag/montaigne/
Comments Archive
reclaimhosting: Welcome to the Chat
maren: Hello and welcome to the second blog post of the day
taylorjadin: Test!
Jim Groom: Long live Doug Belshaw! Thanks for joining the blogathon---looking forward to reading your post here and now!
Andy Rush: "...Death, who currently has a 100% win rate." - Oof. Great post!
Todd: "...ostentation attempt to achieve it by being “busy.” I see a lot of "focus Time" on calendars these days. It often looks like they are trying to look busy. I prefer unfocused time...
Mark: I'm reminded I once had the edition with Salvador Dali's illustrations. I never read the entire "Essays", but enjoyed dippping in and out for both the text and images.
Todd: "We hanker after badges of honour," Well... https://www.google.com/search?q=#ds106+badges
Andy Rush: LUV that GIF!
Andy Rush: #CatsOfReclaimOpen25
Todd: This and badges of honour https://konarheim.com/assignments/gif-a-badge-burgeron106/
Todd: "If you have been able to examine and manage your own life you have achieved the greatest task of all." I think I would change "manage" to something more like "allow"
Todd: Back to earlier post still giggling at stuff like, "As the Bovine Fairy Tale Festival started to get off the ground, @RockyLou22 and @NanaLou had created a series of Puffins for the festival."
Todd: Yay for “Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony.”
Not Todd: I am not Todd
Todd: Hey, there you are! Glad to see you!
Andy Rush: @NotTodd - stop impersonating CogDog
Really not Todd: Just checking who I am
Todd: Maybe: https://iamtalkytina.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/iamTalkyTinaSaysSoIamTalkyTodd.png
Andy Rush: Now we're getting deep into the philosophy - Doug would be proud.
I am Todd: Hey, who stole my socks?
Felix: Now I am a dog
Felix: Apparently, "CogDog" is a banned name.
CogDog: Can the chat not beep?
Todd: Reminds me of the summer... Will the real dr. oblivion please stand up? https://droblivion.wordpress.com/
CogDog: The beeping is annoying, it's like the voice of TalkyTina
Todd: I got no beeps.
I am CogDog: Also annoyed by the bleeping
Todd: Oh, that was because my volume was off...
Andy Rush: You should be able to mute your tab
Mark: Where's that darn switch?
Andy Rush: Somebody test the beep!
Andy Rush: Silence!
Mark: Is this thing on?
CogDog: Bak to Doug's post I read "a form of proto-blogging" as "a form of photo-blogging"
CogDog: I read this as Doug's post, but its a link toa tage archive, have I missed soemthing?
Todd: @cogdog "proto-blogging" as "a form of photo-blogging" I did too
Sarah: I am also wondering if there is an actual post on Doug's blog called Montaigne and the Open Web that I am missing
Sarah: Aha, here it is https://dougbelshaw.com/blog/2025/11/04/things-change-or-montaigne-and-the-open-web/
Sarah: This is great:
So my encouragement to others to blog and to share what they know openly is this: create a digital ‘paper trail’.
Sarah: "I can’t tell you how many times I have typed my own name combined with a particular topic into a search box to find out what I’ve previously written on something:" yup
HibbittsDesign: Greetings from Vancouver!
Jim Groom: Hi paul!
taylorjadin: We've got link updated on the session page now. Thanks @Sarah for tracking that down!
HibbittsDesign: Heh Jim, great to be here 🙂
Mark: Discombobulated again!
Mark: "All I want to gain from doing anything is the fact of having done it: I do not attach distant corollaries and pleadings to it; each thing I do does its job separately: let it succeed if it can."
Mark: A trifecta of posts from Doug Belshaw!
Mark: Website, Discord, Blog posts, Mastodon... Oh my!
CogDog: Discongabblobbobbobulated
Doug Belshaw: Oh my days I missed all of this because I was travelling. Thank so much for your comments and suggestions!