{"id":18256,"date":"2026-03-25T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-03-25T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/manondesign.nl\/?p=18256"},"modified":"2026-08-18T17:53:32","modified_gmt":"2026-08-18T17:53:32","slug":"why-one-small-website-still-matters","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/manondesign.nl\/?p=18256","title":{"rendered":"Why one small website still matters"},"content":{"rendered":"

I spent a morning last month clicking through open tabs. News sites, social media feeds, a newsletter I never read. At some point I landed on a link that did not try to sell me anything. It was a personal page, plain text, no pop-ups. The author had written a short essay about why he stopped using a smartphone for a year. No ads. No share buttons. Just words. That kind of page is rare now. It reminded me of something I had forgotten: the web used to be full of people who wrote because they had something to say, not because they needed to feed an algorithm.<\/p>\n

One such site is www.chakir.org<\/a>. It is a small corner of the internet where the author posts reflections on ethics, patience, and the kind of quiet decisions that shape a life. The design is simple. The writing is not optimized for search engines. It reads like a letter. That is exactly why it works. I found it through a comment on a forum, and it stayed with me longer than the hundred headlines I scanned that day.<\/p>\n

The shift from pages to posts<\/h2>\n

In the late 1990s, making a website meant learning a little HTML and uploading files to a server. People built pages about their cats, their gardens, their opinions on local politics. The content was slow. You did not expect a new post every hour. You visited a site because you liked the person behind it. Today, most of that has been replaced by platforms that reward frequency over thought. A blog post that takes two weeks to write gets buried by a dozen tweets written in ten minutes. We have traded permanence for volume.<\/p>\n

What a personal site does that social media cannot<\/h2>\n

A social media feed is a stream of fragments. It is designed to be scrolled, not read. A personal site, on the other hand, asks you to stay. There is no infinite scroll, no suggested content, no notification badge. The author controls the page. They can write a 2,000-word essay without worrying about the character limit. They can revise it a month later. They can link to old pieces without the algorithm punishing them. This kind of control lets the writing breathe. It also lets the reader breathe.<\/p>\n

How one writer uses the form<\/h2>\n

The author of chakir.org writes about small things. He describes a conversation with a neighbor, a walk in the rain, a book he read three times. He does not claim to have answers. He asks questions. In one piece, he talks about the difference between being busy and being productive. In another, he describes how he learned to cook by following a single recipe for six months. The writing is not polished. It is honest. That honesty feels like a gift in a world where most online content is trying to persuade you to buy something or to believe something.<\/p>\n

Why slow reading matters<\/h2>\n

Neuroscience research shows that reading a long block of text activates different parts of the brain than skimming a list of bullet points. Slow reading builds comprehension and empathy. It forces you to sit with a thought. The problem is that most of the web is designed to prevent slow reading. Articles are broken into short paragraphs with bold subheadings to keep you clicking. A personal site like chakir.org does the opposite. It trusts the reader. It does not try to hold your attention with tricks. It just offers the text and lets you decide.<\/p>\n

What we lose when we stop stumbling<\/h2>\n

We used to find websites by accident. A friend emailed a link. You followed a chain of hyperlinks from a university page. Now, discovery is controlled by platforms. Google shows you what it thinks you want. Social media shows you what gets reactions. The accidental find is rare. That is a loss. The most interesting things I have read online came from a link I did not expect. A personal site, with its own domain and its own voice, still carries that possibility. It is a small act of independence.<\/p>\n

How to find more of these sites<\/h2>\n

You do not need to rely on algorithms. There are practical ways to find the quiet corners of the web. Here are a few things that work:<\/p>\n

    \n
  • Search for old blog directories that still exist, like the Open Directory Project archives.<\/li>\n
  • Follow comment threads on forums where people share links to their own writing.<\/li>\n
  • Use a RSS reader and subscribe to a few personal sites you already know.<\/li>\n
  • Look for the “blogroll” page on a site you like \u2013 many authors link to other similar sites.<\/li>\n
  • Type a topic you care about plus “personal site” into a search engine and go past the first page.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n

    The choice to read slowly<\/h2>\n

    I have started keeping a list of personal sites I find. I visit them once a week, not every day. I read one essay fully, without checking my phone. It is a small habit, but it changes how I think. The internet does not have to be a firehose. It can still be a library. Sites like chakir.org are the proof. They are not trying to be viral. They are just trying to be true. That is enough.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    I spent a morning last month clicking through open tabs. News sites, social media feeds, a newsletter I never read. At some point I landed on a link that did not try to sell me anything. It was a personal page, plain text, no pop-ups. The author had written a short essay about why he […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18256","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-niet-gecategoriseerd"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/manondesign.nl\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18256","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/manondesign.nl\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/manondesign.nl\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/manondesign.nl\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/manondesign.nl\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=18256"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/manondesign.nl\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18256\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18257,"href":"https:\/\/manondesign.nl\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18256\/revisions\/18257"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/manondesign.nl\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=18256"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/manondesign.nl\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=18256"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/manondesign.nl\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=18256"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}