What Is A Person Worth Part II

Sometimes I like going to see or look at pictures of old barns. There is something about them that I find intriguing and interesting.

Maybe it is because every one of them makes my imagination start working overtime, maybe it is because I look at them and wonder who lives there and what their story is.

Maybe it is because I associate them with people who work with their hands and those are often people whose worth is misunderstood by those who don’t use their hands in the same fashion.

Social Media and People

Spent a few minutes today thinking about social media and what happens within it. Social media is about people but we have this habit of not treating them as well as we should. Instead of looking at people as people we talk about followers, fans and subscribers.

Instead of engaging with them we are collecting them like trophies.
What Is A Person Worth

It is well past 1 AM here in Texas and I am chastising myself for committing one of the biggest mistakes a writer can make, sleep deprivation.

Morning will come far too soon and I will nuke myself into a wakeful state with a barrel full of coffee and 198 pounds of eggs. Got a couple of days before Traveling Jack takes to the skies to head back to LA.

And here in the quiet of the night when the silence brings more clarity I wonder again about the direction of the blog and what I want out of social media.

I am not engaging and interacting the way I once was and I wonder if I really care. Does it bother me that I spent so much time trying to build things here and that now I am not giving it the same emphasis as I once did.

Have I stopped looking at followers and readers as people. Am I just looking at them as numbers and relying upon a ton of posts and links to consistently bring traffic to the blog.

Or is this just one of those momentary blips, a hiccup if you will.

Musical Intermission

Here are seven songs that have accompanied me this evening.

1. The Man Who Couldn’t Cry- Johnny Cash
   
2. God’s Gonna Cut You Down- Johnny Cash
3. (Ghost) Riders In The Sky- Johnny Cash
4. It Ain’t Me, Babe- Johnny Cash with June Carter Cash
5. Going to California- London Philharmonic Orchestra & Peter Scholes
6. Hero Of The Day-Metallica
7. Adagio for Strings-New Zealand Symphony Orchestra & Andrew Schenck

Sort of an eclectic mix, but it fits my mood and the moment and that is good enough for me. Haven’t seen my kids since Memorial Day on anything but Skype and I am ready to burst with excitement.

Sometimes the kids and I talk about those old barn pictures I mentioned above and we share our thoughts about who lives there and what their lives are like.

And I talk to the kids about why their education is so very important and tell them I want them to focus hard on it so that they don’t have to work with their hands for a living, unless they want to.

Those last four words stick with me a lot, unless they want to.

Sometimes I wonder if my role as a father includes pushing them to try and find careers based upon want or what will provide them with financial security.

Most of the time I come back to the same place where I push them to focus on their education so that they can gain more choices and opportunity because sometimes you have to work for a while before you figure out what you really want.

What Is a Person Worth

Almost 2 am, I have stopped writing twice to stare out  at the sky and to clear my head. My mind is racing about a million different things.

Received notifications about some new subscribers and notifications about unsubscribers too.

Don’t know why they left but they did. Maybe they didn’t feel valued or maybe they grew bored. Maybe they just didn’t see value in the content anymore, I don’t know.

Thought about trying to include some of my favorite posts here but I am finally tired so I have to wrap this up. What I am certain of is that the posts I like best are those that include some passion and personality. I like the ones where we share pieces of our lives because it helps build connections and keeps us from collecting people like trophies.

People power social media.