Late Sunday night blurs with early Monday morning and I am back at the computer. I am wrestling with the boundaries of blogging and am frustrated by semi anonymity.
It happens to me…sometimes.
A feeling of restlessness and frustration. A sense of not having accomplished enough and having fallen short of the mark. I look around at others and see what could be, but remind myself that sometimes looks are deceiving.
And I remember that my list of accomplishments is long. My ledger isn’t all red because there is plenty of black, but sometimes it doesn’t matter.
We are who we are. This is me. There is good, there is bad and there is ugly. Most of the time I am perfectly fine with it.
The Village
Our blogs really do remind me of villages or at least how I imagine them to be. I am a city guy and though I have spent time in villages I don’t know a ton about them. Or maybe I do. Maybe life at private schools and small businesses have taught me something about them.
Maybe it is part of why I am sometimes quite guarded and slow to trust others. I have seen the gossip mills at work and have never been impressed by them.
Won’t lie and say I never engage in that sort of chatter because I have. I don’t think I do it often, but maybe I do.
Still I like to think the tone we set helps to build the kind of village we want to create. I know I like the one that is forming here.
A year ago I wrote a post called I Hope You Will Be A Part of My Community and was very pleased to see how many people signed up for my Facebook page, not because I look at you as being numbers but because it is a different place to hang out with a different vibe. I have had fun getting to know people there.
But I have also had a lot of fun getting to know people here in the comments, by email and by newsletter.
If you didn’t comment or email I would still write. That is not going to change. Writing is a part of me and if I stopped I would be crippled but that doesn’t diminish the importance or value of those who spend time here.
The Seeker
I am still wrestling with that letter to the universe and still asking if things happen for a reason. I have my thoughts and ideas about this.
I suspect part of my frustration lies in feeling like I almost have the answers and the idea that I am not going to get the sort of answer I want.
It is kind of a funny thing to me.
I remember standing in the middle of Jerusalem talking to girls from Scotland, Australia and South Africa about my funny American accent and why I wore my baseball cap backwards.
It is a moment in time where I felt a thousand possibilities. I was single and I remember thinking if I left the pub with any one of these women life would be forever changed. I wasn’t concerned with whether it would be better or worse, I just knew it felt like Let’s Make a Deal.”
Monty Hall was just waiting for me to pick what lay behind door number 1, 2 or 3.
The Choices We Make
Flip through the pages of this blog and you will see I carry very few regrets, but those I do are major. I do my best not to focus upon them because the past is behind us, the present now and the future unwritten.
It is not always possible to say which was good or bad. As my grandfather used to tell me sometimes you don’t know until you play out the hand and that is what I am doing.
I am playing out the hand.
That is part of my strategy for building the blog. Sustain your effort is a big part of my motto because I have seen growth come over time.
People stop blogging and you fill the gaps where they were. It is not because you try to it is because you are there and good things come to those who work for them.
I am working.
Where Everyone Knows Your Name
“Where everybody knows your name,
And they’re always glad you came;
Where everybody knows your name,
And they’re always glad you came..”
Cheers
One of the big goals here is to build a community that is worth being a part of. It is the idea that being part of a village is a good thing because it is big enough to offer quite a bit but small enough to offer a cozy and warm feeling.
I hope those of you who are new will choose to stay and those that were already here will continue. I appreciate you.
And just for the heck of it here are some old posts that I decided to show a little love to again:
- Build Connections & Community
- Writers Write Right
- What Happens To Your Facebook Account When You Die
- 666 Devilish Ways To Become A Social Media Superstar
- Why Steve Jobs Isn’t Important Now
- The Heart Wants What The Heart Wants
- Write Dangerously
See you later.
I’ve been a city gal my whole life, but lately…I’ve begun to wonder what it’d be like to live in a smaller community. It’s appealing in a way I never imagined. Would I like everyone to know my name? It’s starting to feel like a yes 🙂
Hi Sandi,
I go back and forth on it. I spent years going to a sleep away camp as both a camper and staff member. It was great and I loved it, but there were moments it made me crazy.
That was because it was a place where everyone knew your name and half of them knew your business. It is not an exact duplicate of a village/small town, but there are elements.
OTOH, there really is something nice about it all.
I agree. I have visited villages, and I really enjoy places where everybody knows my name (and I really enjoyed cheers). Relationships are one of the most important parts of blogging. And my goal is similar to yours. I’m not blogging for money, my business is helping offline clients to online success.
My blog is a community and my readers are my friends.
Hi Jens,
I think your goal is part of why you bring such positive energy to the blogosphere. That is of tremendous value.
The blog is a good place to practice and work on building relationships.
Well said, a village indeed.
Whereas some take their engagement to Facebook and Twitter with minute by minute updates or posts; I find it most effective for me to toil in the blogs. I find the engagement a little deeper for the most part and only as public as it needs to be.
I think some of us are still waiting for the BFO (blinding flash of the obvious) but if it were only that simple. We can all see what A+B+C equals, it’s just a matter of fitting them into the right place at the right time.
Until then……….
Hi Bill,
Thank you for not calling me the village idiot, it is much appreciated. 😉
I have read a bunch of posts recently in which people talked about what they hoped to accomplish in very oblique terms. It might be helpful to just spell it out and ask for the community to comment on whatever it is.
No doubt, the relative anonymity is what gets me at times. I love to write something and then edit, edit, and edit some more, make it all nice and purdy, and… crickets.
I could help myself by posting more often or engaging a lot more on social media. But then I remember I write my articles for my entertainment first, and get a kick out of when someone else reads. Then I feel better.
I am a selfish bastard… 🙂
Hi Joe,
Your family says the same thing about you. 😉
The most important part of this whole business is to have fun. It is too much work not to enjoy it. And when you have a good time doing this good things come from it.
It’s funny how we waver between love and loathing on the Internet. Sometime I see these glimpses of goodness and brilliance and sometimes I wonder if this is a waste of time. Maybe I should join a fishing boat some place. : )
I am a lousy golfer. But every once in awhile I hit an amazing shot. And I think gosh, I have that in me too. I think I’ll keep coming back to see what happens next time. Blogging is kind of like that. Great post Jack. Thanks.
Hi Mark,
Funny you mention a fishing boat because I have had a conversation with several other bloggers about that. We wondered if anyone would get any fishing done or if the time would be spent tweeting, pinning and writing about the fish that got away.
I like your analogy about golfing- makes sense to me. The one other thing I have learned is that you never know when something you hate will resonate with others. Got to take a shot when you have it because you just don’t know when you’ll connect and send one sailing.
Jack,
You’ve done well. You are very consistent and clear about who you are and why you’re here.
I’m finally working out those kinds of issues and facing the thoughts that hijack my brain every day. I can over-think anything without knowing it and spend a whole day thinking and never doing. You know how you can drive and end up somewhere with no memory of the journey because you were daydreaming?
I’m wrestling that demon. It;s normal to plan and wonder, but not at the expense of the present. Seems you have learned how to balance the two. Even though you often talk about the future and how you can feel things coming together, you still make this place a nice hangout where people feel comfortable! 🙂
Hi Betsy,
I don’t know if I have always been clear. Took a lot of writing and thinking to get to this place and now I think I have figured something out, or so I hope. 😉
You and all of the other regulars deserve a lot of credit for helping to set the tone here. It is a good crowd, nice, respectful and interested in something more. That makes it easier for me to write and to hopefully come up with something interesting for you to read.