the wordpress chronicles

wordpress was a pleasure to use if i’m being honest, it was really a hassle, and i liked the prebuilt themes it already had for free – and to be honest, it wasn’t a deal breaker for me for the longest of times. i’ve rather written the most amount of short pieces while i was using wordpress.

but eventually as times come to serve, preferences and needs change over the course of time and so did mine. more importantly, i got suspended from wordpress too just like substack, and that pissed me off so bad that i won’t even get in on that further. a visceral type of anger, although not visible looking at me.

the subdomain looked ugly to me, although familiar, and i wasn’t really finding a “perfect” theme. plus due to my planning ahead habit, i tend to overcompensate for every single thing that you can think of.

the perfect website, the perfect layout, the perfect words and sorting – all of that has sickened me. i have mastered the art of “thinking” about perfection, not achieving it. perfectionsim is a myth, and it is a fallacy that you can never achieve. you’ll always want more-more-more. there is no point in going through the route of perfection, because it isn’t something that you’ll feel one day. it is in the human tendency to want more, want bigger, want better, and so on and so forth. accept that you are human, you are not and can never be perfect. you can go through the pursuit of being perfect, but do not make that your whole personality. please.

i’ve done enough damage to myself and have refused to take most actions because of this exact pursuit of perfection. i wanted everything to be perfect. always.

not anymore.

here i lay the pieces i have written (most being short) while i was on wordpress, chronologically sorted.

my thoughts on wordpress.

February 11, 2026.

never thought i would be here on wordpress.

but here we are. life works in strange ways, doesn’t it?

i am apparently on my way to getting unbanned on substack. but what does that mean for someone like you? being the usual drop-by visitor or even a loyal subscriber?

it just means that i DON’T shift platforms again.

the gameplan will be different this time, with the plan being: publishing on both platforms while gaining full autonomy being the final endgoal.

i will have my presence both wordpress AND substack and i will be using both of them to publish the same pieces. i will post more on wordpress since i do like this short posts thing that i have created and indulged myself into.

substack will have all the bigger pieces and it will have the more higher leverage content. since i dont (and won’t) be using social media often as one might expect, you will see me writing more often here, and even on substack.

i think i want an organic reach and not something manufactured so that the reach is organic and my readers are also loyal and wanting to interact with my content because of me.

i want that kind of a loyalty and process in place, where i have full autonomy while i can ensure privacy for both you and myself to publish stuff on the internet, because let’s face it –

Privacy is a non-negotiable, fundamental right.

Ownership of one’s own content, and the freedom of speech, is also imminent and necessary. More than ever.

Looking forward to what life throws at me, and us, as a collective.

– Kaifi.

P.S. still using buttondown in wordpress because we are going to shift to buttondown anyways. thank you for your support! 🙂

why did i choose this theme?

February 11, 2026.

the name of the theme is Loïc.

it gives a coffee-esqué vibe to it, i know.

that’s part of why i love reading my own posts, hehe.

i have been making a notes app, on and off, and this theme reminded me exactly of it – that relaxed, and warm vibe that i crave to have everytime i pin down my thoughts, ideas or even simple notes.

i wished to replicate that in my writing because why not?

i’ll probably be continuing this, but i am already feeling a sense of disgust with this due to how uncustomizable wordpress.com sites can be. but whatever. i have to deal with it for the time being, nothing to do.

it is still peaceful and it looks particularly dodgy on LCD screens, but on LED it looks amazing as usual.

i could have gone for a write.as type of color, but i decided on this to keep things interesting. because why not?

–Kaifi.

is wordpress a bit too much?

February 7, 2026.

i’ve been working with wordpress for a few days for a couple of hours each day now.

it seems unnecessarily bloated to me, especially with the theme section and the functionality i am offered as a writer.

i’ve tried about 15 themes (and individually tweaked them multiple times) before i finally settled on this one and felt satisfied.

the name’s Loïc.

it’s sleek, minimalistic, and has a tone of brown that i absolutely love.

the reason why i might have been finding editing everything in wordpress overwhelming is because i have been trying to optimize for everything all at once.

this is a beginner, rookie-ahh mistake i made almost everytime i do something new.

i am writing more posts than usual from what i can see. i don’t know if that’s something good or bad, but as long as i can be creative and freely able to express myself – i guess i’m all in.

let us take this simply. one step at a time. slow but steady. consistency is key. perfectionism is a myth, especially when you’re trying to build something up from the ground.

i will be porting over everything over here, because this is nice. until the itch comes back to revamp everything i have built so far in order to feel a feeling of accomplishment.

to be ballin, you gotta b-all-in.

why wordpress?

why not other alternatives?

February 7, 2026.

Firstly, WordPress has been proven for multiple decades, and yes, while it might give anyone using it an almost unc-status, it isn’t something that you can go wrong with.

A $129 yearly subscription for Squarespace, $9 a month for Ghost, or even getting banned by Substack (again) didn’t seem appealing to me at all.

I don’t earn money from my blog, hence I furthermore don’t see a reason to spend money on this yet. If popular opinion comes to shove, I might consider later on getting a better subscription.

Even before I joined Substack, I was looking at WordPress for a few months, while simultaneously wrestling with the idea of whether I should start a blog or not.

Secondly, I am doing a lot of things and trying to finish a project as I speak. I could have very easily made my own website, or even revamped my current personal website from scratch to truly make it my own thing.

To truly be self-sufficient and the purist that I claim (or want) to be. I would definitely want this whole website + blog to be self-hosted, with my own infrastructure as well as me being the sysadmin for everything.

I have planned that out as a future project, which you will definitely be seeing in the near future. Let’s get this to 1,000 subscribers!

But for now, I value my time for other priorities that must be finished in time, and I do not wish to further fragment my attention to projects that can clearly be done on a later timeline.

Besides, I’m excited to see how much I can tweak WordPress to my liking, and I love to explore. You’ll see my shenanigans as time goes by.

I’m also on Mastodon, if you were curious.

–K.