This blog is quite a beast. Sometimes I wonder how (or why) I'm even doing it. I was thinking about that subject tonight, so I thought...why not blog about it?
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Now playing: Lisa Loeb - How (from the Twister soundtrack)
via FoxyTunes
(Quick aside: yes, Lisa Loeb IS very un-Chris-like, but it's off the Twister soundtrack, which always reminds me of home. That's how she snuck in to my collection, and truth be told, I do enjoy some of her music. She has a nice voice.)
Anyway, I don't know how many of you have blogs of your own. There seem to be certain types of folks online, where blogs are concerned. There are people who are content to search them out and read them. Then there are people who are really hardcore about blogging and both read and write them regularly. Some even make it their livelihood. Then there are people like me...casual blogger-readers who just try to put up something every once in a while.
Heidi reads Dooce (notice I didn't link to it...it's easy enough to find, and I'm not a fan). The lady who does Dooce has been able to make it her main income...out of necessity, as it turns out. Early in the life of her blog, she posted some unflattering comments about her boss. The boss found the comments and fired her. She kept blogging, grew an avid readership, and a couple of years back just went to blogging full-time. She and her husband now get all their income from their own personal blogs.
Honestly, I'd love to be one of those "livelihood" types. Writing for a living, making enough that I don't have to have a real, "normal" job. I could wake up, blog a little, go out and play golf or spend time with my wife and kids or work on the car or whatever, come in and blog a little more, go out to eat, enjoy some quiet time, blog one last time, then go to bed. It would still be work, I have no doubt of that, but the allure of the flexibility and romance (so to speak) of doing nothing but blogging is undeniable. Maybe I could write an Oklahoma news blog, or a Sooner news blog, or something. I could do an information security blog...yeah, sure, like there aren't already a thousand of those.
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Now playing: Sophie B. Hawkins - Damn, I Wish I Was Your Lover
via FoxyTunes
But I must say, even though the allure is there, there are a lot of days that I face this blog with a huge blank. Keeping this thing going is a lot of work. Don't get me wrong, it's fun to do, and I suppose the voyeur in me enjoys putting myself, my thoughts, my ideas, and my life out there for all the world to browse as they see fit. Not all of it, perhaps...the parts I choose to put out there...but it's there, nonetheless. There are other days when I have tons of ideas and I leave notes or send myself e-mails with them...and then they go to nothing. There are days when I have a great idea and I actually sit down to blog, but I can't form my thoughts in a coherent way, and I give up. I'm very busy at work, and they've been cracking down on some personal Internet use...and blogging does take up a lot of tine to do properly.
Seriously, take some time and go back to look at some of my old posts in the archive. It's interesting to see how I've changed over the past few years, that much is true. But look at the content. My old posts were long, sometimes rambling, but they were nearly always coherent. They represent me at the start of my new life outside of my first marriage, when I had a lot more time to devote to putting together a good post. I also had the wherewithal to focus my thoughts and really express myself; mental self-expression was something I didn't have as much of in my first marriage. They were deep, sometimes controversial, usually enlightening (at least, for me), relatively positive in tone, and they used a more formal language. Then for a while, I did a more stream-of-consciousness format for my posts. I liked those posts, because I could talk about a day's worth of thoughts in one post. I still had time to put together long-ish posts but there covered more subjects with less depth, usually. Today's posts...well, they're an odd mix. Some are short comments and nothing more, like my post earlier today about the diuretic effect of my medication. Others are a byproduct of other technologies I'm experimenting with, like when I post through Jott. Some are update posts about what's happening in my life directly, others are appeals for prayers, others complaints, others political rants...it's much more of a mixed bag and much less consistent. Most blogs have a style that is fairly set. The author knows how s/he will say what they want to say, they'll say it that way today, and tomorrow, and ten years from now, and the reader will be drawn in by that and made comfortable by that consistency. I am not able to provide that consistency.
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Now playing: Rush - Ghost of a Chance
via FoxyTunes
It's funny to look at why I started this blog. I have always maintained that this blog is primarily for me, and that you're all just along for the ride. That's still true to a degree, but there's more now. First, I rarely have time to review it, and see where my thoughts and attitudes have brought me. Second, it provides a lifeline to those who can't stay in regular contact with me to check in every once in a while. It does still give me a forum to dump brain contents, and I suppose that is a valuable thing for anyone. This blog reflects well who I am, though, because it not only mirrors my personality and my thoughts, it mirrors my life-state. It goes as I go, and it represents where I am. Like I said at the very beginning, sometimes I wonder how or even why I keep up with it, coming on here sometimes for no other reason than that I haven't posted in a few days, or because I have an urge to say a great deal about very little. Sometimes, as you've seen I have to express anger at the vast injustices I see in the world, or the lack of common sense and foresight that we seem to continually demonstrate as a species, both individually and collectively. Sometimes the reasons I post are good ones, and sometimes...well, they're really not.
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Now playing: Pet Shop Boys - DJ Culture
via FoxyTunes
There have been several times, even as recently as a month or two ago, that I have seriously considered closing it down for good, never posting again. It's a very tough thing, putting a post together, because I don't want it to be stupid or vapid or waste your time or my time. I want my posts to be something I'm happy putting out. It's difficult to keep them relevant and timely and somewhat important. There have been so many times that I've had a story, or a set of stories, or something I've wanted to discuss, and I e-mail links to myself and even maybe put down a basic 3-point or 4-point outline to get me going, and I end up not having time to do anything meaningful with that for four or five days...by which time, the subject is usually irrelevant or stale. There have been so many times that I've wanted to continue a previous subject, or finish something I started in the past (like the Saga of the Car, for example...that one still sticks in my craw).
I had and have so many things I wanted to do with the blog but just don't have the time and/or energy. I'd love to redesign the site, put something in place that's professional and serious but not the cookie-cutter stuff that Blogger provides. I'd love to have regular features, something like the old "Daily Chuck Norris Fact" was, only more elaborate. I'd love to have real stories, things I put together myself on subjects that really matter to me. I'd love to develop them and move them and make them real. Like I said, though, that takes a lot of time and energy...commodities I'm lacking these days, and I really do have enough "hobbies."
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Now playing: Red Hot Chili Peppers - Melancholy Mechanics (from the Twister soundtrack)
via FoxyTunes
As I said, this blog is quite a beast. It's like any other pastime, I suppose, it takes a lot to do it right. I guess I just do it because it's become a part of my life. I also don't like letting my readers down, strange as that is to say. Thanks for reading along.
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