On Hiatus: Finding Inspiration in Dotfiles

If you've followed this blog over the years, you've likely noticed the long period of silence. It wasn't intentional, but it was necessary. I've decided to write this post to share a bit about where I've been and what led me back to writing here.

It boiled down to a few key reasons.

1. A Stale Workflow

My previous blogging setup was built on Jekyll. For a long time, it worked just fine. But over the years, for reasons I can't quite articulate, the workflow just began to feel... stale. The process of creating a new post, building the site, and deploying it started to feel like a chore. There was no single major issue, but the spark was gone. It felt like I was fighting against a current of minor frictions that, over time, eroded my desire to engage with the platform.

2. "Finding Myself" in a ~/.dotfiles Repository

During this time, I was also incredibly busy "finding myself." For me, this wasn't a spiritual journey in the traditional sense. It was a deep, obsessive dive into crafting the perfect development environment. I decided to migrate away from my old, scattered, bash-based configurations and build a new, cohesive setup from scratch.

This project became my new creative outlet. It's a living repository that you can find on GitHub: mxaddict/dotfiles.

This wasn't just about changing my shell prompt. It was a complete overhaul of my workflow, focusing on the tools I use every single day. I poured hundreds of hours into configuring my hyprland desktop on Arch Linux, refining my neovim setup with Lua, and ensuring every tool I use—from git to my MySQL client—is perfectly tailored to my CLI-centric approach. This also extended to creating bespoke tools, like my quoty CLI, designed to inject a bit of fun into mundane tasks like Git commits. This process of building and refining my own tools, documented in my dotfiles, was where all my creative energy was going.

3. A Simple Lack of Inspiration

Finally, and perhaps most importantly, I was just uninspired when it came to writing. When your daily workflow feels like a drag and your creative energy is focused elsewhere, it's hard to find the motivation to sit down and write a coherent blog post. I didn't want to publish content just for the sake of it. I wanted it to be meaningful, and at the time, I just didn't have it in me.

The Return

So, what changed? A few things. First, my dotfiles project reached a state of maturity that I'm proud of. It's now a stable, efficient foundation for all my work. Second, the very process of building that foundation led me to new tools and ideas I'm excited to write about, including my recent migration of this blog from Jekyll to Zola. The new workflow with Zola feels fresh, fast, and aligns perfectly with my love for single-binary, Rust-based tools.

The inspiration is back. It's time to start sharing again. Thanks for sticking around.