National Blog Posting Month entered my universe last year via my friend Lucy's blog, Box Elder , and I can assure you that a rich feast awaits you if you read her blog this month.
I can't promise the same here at Folk, Flocks, and Flowers.
That said, however, something just got into me and I think it would be good for me to try making myself write on a daily basis. I don't know what I'll write about, which makes this a great time to start, since the month of November has no theme for NaBloPoMo-ers to concern themselves with.
So I'm really doing this more for myself than for my readers, and I think it fair to warn you of that in advance. Not that I've ever set out to be a terribly audience-focused blogger. Not that I ever really even expected to have an audience beyond family and close friends.
Which brings to mind the strange fact that according to Blogger, my profile page has had circa 2,000 views (I guess at some point Blogger got tired of keeping specific numbers?) since I started the blog. While I realize that that number is nothing compared a bunch of blogs out there in the -osphere, it did kind of startle me when I saw it the other day.
Why on earth have anything close to 2,000 people looked at my profile page? Who are they? How did they come across it? Are they mostly people who know me? Or mostly people who don't? What did they hope to learn by looking at it? What did they think after looking at it?
The main feedback I get from anyone who has seen it and given feedback, is that my photo doesn't show me enough, so why did I choose that photo? Maybe I'll write about that one day this month.
And the (sad to me, in a way) truth is that I doubt anyone who has looked at it has given it much more than a moment's thought. And the reason I say this is that most people who are looking at blog profiles have probably looked at lots of blog profiles, and will probably look at many more. And the human mind can only manage a certain amount of information, which is what a blog profile gives you.
And that's the sad part to me, that in a way, a blog profile reduces real people to images and little lists on a "page" that is really not a page like a page in a yearbook, or a photo album, something you can pick up and touch and keep on your shelf and treasure.
No, by having a blog I have put myself out there in this impersonal space that I can't even begin to define or explain....this "page" is not touchable, or smellable as the pages of a book are. (I love the smell of old paper.) It's just a visual image that appears on a screen and disppears with the click of a mouse. (Which is not really a mouse at all, either.)
But for better or for worse, I'm out there, and now I'm making this daily commitment, and maybe on December 5 I will have reached some amazing insight because of it--or maybe I'll just be relieved to write that final daily post! We'll see.
In any case, I'm thankful to those of you who have told me that sometimes what I write strikes a chord, or even makes a difference. When I started this blog, I so did not want it become an exercise in vanity. If it ever becomes that, my intention is to end it.
Until then, here's to sending thoughts into intangible space for unknown readers!
2 comments:
Oh good! I'm so sorry I haven't been over every day, I'll try to now I know you're doing this. One of the problems of it is that when on-line time is spent posting oneself it's a bit harder to get around to others. But then I think also the regualarity means one tends to post more spontaneous, shorter things, so there are lovely little nuggets to be had!
My profile page is the only kind of stat I've ever looked at, and that not often now. I feel kind of odd about it too, as I don't really feel many of the favourites and interests I put down in a rather ad hoc way three years ago really say much about me any more. But I don't really want to be bothered to change it.
But thanks for being here, and truly I think your blog the least like an exercise in vanity I've ever come across!
Best love to you, so glad to have come across you.
I hear you. I think I may have changed one thing on my profile since I started it. I think I have probably changed more than that in five years!
Thanks for your encouragement. It is a mutual gladness.
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