But posts like this one here show me that it was cargo culting from the get go.
I have much to say, but to date dismissed most of it, because (oh the irony) I thought I shouldn't make this personal space of mine too personal.
An old boss of mine said you can't truly fake enthusiasm. That's stuck with me since.
Do you ever get back to any of your old posts and think "wow, this is just bad"?
I mean, I envy you for being able to just own all this, complete with the blog mascot, which to me is the ultimate power move here.
How does one obtain this power?
I think turning 30 helped with some perspective; I don't care [as much] anymore. "Yeah my partner is a manga artist and drew me a mascot, so what?" In my early 20s that wouldn't have even computed.
But I think the best thing I've found is to own it. Quote your past self, make lighthearted fun of it, and show how you've grown and what you've learned. Between that and not taking things too seriously, it also disarms a lot of trolls.
It's also helped in unexpected ways. People at AsiaBSDCon remembered me as the guy who blogs about BSD. I got Allan and Benedict laughing on a BSD Now podcast at a bad joke I wrote in an otherwise-technical post. That felt really good!
I empathise that it's trivial to discuss, but hard to internalise. CBT would say if you do it enough times, you feel better about it. That's probably the real answer.
I did too and it worked very well.