This is purely my personal philosophy but I view that, ultimately, my validation is when I'm happy with my actions, position in life, and personal accomplishments.
I love sharing those with friends and family. But I hate the opaque algorithms on social media sites that are tuned to prioritize engagement & time spent on the service. I find that these algos are rewarding rage bait due to their engagement farming.
Sharing with those that I want to share with, in an environment free of algorithms and capitalistic intentions provides that validation. And having a random site visitor here and there who enjoys what I have to say is just icing on the cake.
As I get older, I realize that we were never meant to have 10,000 people looking at what we ate for lunch, or the mess our cat made while we were at work. Interactions like that back in the 1500s would have made us more influential than Kings. A close-knit community that cherishes the expression of all our oddities, curiosities, and hobbies is something that just can't be replicated in current social media.
