2022-09-08 ● Dance first, think later

I was going through old files on my hard drive, and came across some prototypes of websites I made in my teens, but never published. I was always so caught up with trying to make things “perfect” and kept putting off before they were complete (when is a website ever complete, really?). Decades later, in just this past month, I’ve since pushed three websites, and I have to say that it feels good. My teenage self would be proud, but also probably terrified?

A screenshot of Kalawakan: a two-column layout with the large column against a backdrop of makeshift clouds, a navy blue background with golden stars scattered all over.

Remember when there was no CSS and we had to do all layout styling via tables? Dark times. (Although I had to create an email HTML template recently and it uses the same kind of layout hacks, and I did not want to go back to there again.) Kalawakan, the Filipino word for “space” was also an old LiveJournal handle. I very much loved space-themed things. I originally meant this to be a blog, maybe. Also, these links are still some of my favourite websites! Brings me back.

A screenshot of Edward III: the words edward iii in large serif font turned on its side, a quote from a short story by Murakami Haruki surrounded by oversized quotation marks, and an upside-down cutout illustration of an elephant, all against a yellow-tan background with white flowers and stems.

I was a fan of Murakami Haruki when I was younger, and I was reading The Elephant Vanishes at the time, hence the elephant (and the quote, I think?) I don't know what I intended this to be, perhaps an index for a collective (another concept from the 00s).

A screenshot of Soul in Gray: a three-column layout: the first column with the words Soul in Gray >> The Jiro Wave, the second column a monochromatic photo of Jiro except for his blond hair, the last column are four boxes that serve as navigation.

Jiro was my favourite member (still is!) from the Japanese Visual Kei band, GLAY. This layout used iframes and JavaScript I found off of Dynamic Drive (as you do when you’re learning and starting from zero knowledge). I’d made a few more shrines (for anime series or characters), but I guess I didn’t save them all.

I was always waiting to be ready, until I never was. The emotional discomfort of pushing something incomplete or unfurnished to production never sat well with me, and that’s why I almost never published anything publicly. But now I know the satisfaction from seeing my work out in the wild, even if it’s on training wheels. The whole point of it all was to create and have fun, but I took myself too seriously. I still do. But progress is progress! I’ll try to remember more to dance first, and think later.

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