Blog Vacation/Slowdown - some posts after Labor Day?
There will hopefully be a few big posts after Labor Day as I clear
out some material, but the next week looks like an excellent time to
to take some blog-vacation. In fact, while I'm not shutting down
entirely quite yet, the recent
blogging-as-fraud discussion had an unintended consequence of making my
blog continuation even more precarious. That is, given that it raised
my profile among A-listers, the obvious defense of oligarchy would be
to trash whatever I wrote. Since someone like me never, ever, wins against an
A-lister, almost by definition,
I'm not inclined to write my fingers to the bone on posts which are:
1) doomed to not be read, and 2) then to be used as justification as to why I'm
not worthy of being read (having gone through the trashing
process quite a few times, I know it well - as the old joke goes, if I
walked on water, the slam would be I couldn't swim). I'd rather just not play
the game at all, and save my time and energy.
Blog not quite dead yet, but I think there's been another turning-point.
Seth, while everyone needs a break from the tempest in a teacup that is the blogosphere, I hope you don't stop blogging.
There are a lot of people out here who read your blog and really enjoy discussing stuff with you, even if we all do get bashed from time to time by the so-called blogging elite for daring to question the oligarchy.
Peace,
Kent
Kent, thanks for kind words, I really do appreciate them. But while I know there's a small fan audience, the whole endeavor just seems to be negative overall. Blogging doesn't work for me, given what I want out of it, and worse, it seems to hurt me. The encouragement of a few people has been the main reason I didn't dump it even earlier. But I think it's undeniably clear that even in my niche, there are too many gatekeepers who have grudges against me, and I have too much baggage, to ever be heard much. So I'll always be pressing my nose against the window of the attention-feast, maybe occasionally tossed a scrap if I beg hard enough, but never a seat at the table. Plus personal attacks on me are read by far more people than will ever see my defense. That's all extremely unappealing.
Another Seth once said, "such a noisy one as I never spoke with the lips of Death."
You write about a great many things, not "just" censorware. Perhaps a clean slate, like what Shelley did? I'm not suggesting that this would "cure" the A-List/attention problem, but it would afford you an opportunity to shed some of that baggage you talked about. Despite your numerous setbacks, perhaps tossing the baby out with the blog bathwater* isn't completely ideal, however tempting. I of course defer to your decision and hope to remain in contact with you regardless of the means.
* Blog as "outlet" as opposed to blog as "career advancement tool". When The Vision Thing effectively ran its course (as I was no longer involved with process work professionally and couldn't get excited about writing about it anymore), I shuttered it in favor of my personal "outlet", ethmar.com. I personally am happier doing what I do (yay me!), even though I effectively lost 99% of my audience. There's something to be said for fans. ;-)
Ethan, the baggage is in the social network - it can't be shed by a different URL (and I'm not going to create a false identity, it's just not something I want to do). It's attached to me personally, not the name of the blog.
One thread running through this whole topic is that perhaps blogging is objectively bad for me. There's also a deep bias issue in many A-list/Z-list discussions, because the chorus which pipes up and says (no offense intended) "I'm writing to connect-with-people" is essentially the ones who remain - nearly everyone else is gone! So if you weren't happy, you wouldn't be around to leave a comment.
There's nothing wrong with writing for a friends and family type audience. But it's not something which is attractive to me. It's sitting, and typing, and staring at a screen - activities which I should strive to do less of, if possible, not more.
No offense taken, and ultimately, neither I nor anyone else can compel you to do something that you aren't interested in doing. I hope to "see you around", whatever you decide.
If you only knew the WHOLE truth:
http://www.gapingvoid.com/Moveable_Type/archives/003240.html
Hugh: The A-listers said it, I didn't:
"Welcome to Foo, you lucky few"
But I did say this:
"A conservative is a liberal who has been mugged.
A liberal is a conservative who has been arrested.
Somebody who has not been invited to a hot party is a discoverer of the power of social connections."