May 07, 2011

my thoughts

Originally published October 1, 2003

I've been blogging for 21 months now. I almost quit once because I felt totally stressed out by it. But that experience allowed me to take a step back and realize what I really wanted to do here.

I just write. I don't want to go fang and claw in competition with other bloggers for popularity or links. I got caught up in that nonsense once and it really fucked me up. I'm not doing that crap ever again.

Don't get me wrong. I like my readers and the really clever comments I receive from them. That "ceaseless quest for adoration from people who don't know me" is part of my motivation and I'm not going to lie about that. I like attention. I put up with the trolls even though they piss me off. I don't know why anyone wants to be a troll, but I really don't know why I want to blog the way I do, either.

I've used this analogy before, but the longer I write this blog the more I believe that it's true. The internet is a big, vast, surging ocean. I like to stand on the shore, watch the waves and stick a note in a bottle. I then throw the bottle into that big, vast, surging ocean on the outgoing tide just to see where it might land.

The note may be read, or it may not. Maybe nobody ever finds the bottle. Maybe somebody does and passes the note to other people. Maybe, after they read my note, THEY start throwing bottles in the ocean, too. That can happen.

I just like blogging a lot better since I stopped whoring for links and checking the Ecosystem every day to see where I stood in the rankings. I could give a shit about that anymore. What I put here will be here every day, just because I want to do it.

Pick up that bottle you found on the beach and read the note inside if you want to. Otherwise, don't. It really doesn't matter one way or the other. I'll still keep putting the notes in bottles and tossing them into the ocean.

That's what I do.