Hello. Pleased to meet you. This is my blog. Shall I give you a tour? Yes, I just had the background done, thank you for noticing...actually, those are original borders...thanks very much. Well, sit yourself down, and I'll make some coffee. Sugar? Cream? Lizard, a la Matilda?
Good, now we're all settled in.
See, this is how I do it around here. Comfortable. Easy. At thosestrangeramblings.blogspot.com, we are all one big family. That is, assuming enough people end up reading this blog that we can actually call ourselves a family.
See, I was hesitant about starting a blog for a long time. The reason, I think, is understandable to most anyone who is on the internet. As you well know if you have a blog or a vlog or a facebook account or whatever else comes next, the amount of people you are able to reach is important. Whether they be friends or followers or subscribers, you care about how many people read/watch your work. Even if you don't want to admit it to yourself, I guarantee you care. Come on, now. Don't lie to me. I see that look in your eye. You die a little every time your mom posts a comment.
I believe that there are two reasons for this. The first is that facing the internet is DAUNTING. The fact that so many people are on it makes it a huge place, and putting yourself into that place can be scary. What you are effectively doing is throwing yourself into a void and hoping that rather than becoming part of the void, you become something more. You desperately want rise above the void and become something important, something that will make a difference in the world, and you are afraid that that might not happen.
The second reason is a lot more basic. The simple truth is that we all want to be liked. If you only have one subscriber and that person is your mom (who tells you things like, "That last post was interesting! Don't be dissuaded by the fact that people don't like your work - you're just not afraid to be DIFFERENT"), that can be seriously detrimental to your self-esteem. Not that it usually means anything - if you don't have any subscribers, it's probably not because you suck (as your inner voice would have you believe) but simply because there is TOO MUCH STUFF on the internet, and you have gotten lost in it. No one can dislike you if they don't know you exist.
Or at least, that is what I'm telling myself as I step into the big, scary world that is the internet, with its own set of rules and its own modus operandi. Like everyone else out there, I do want to be able to reach a lot of people and I do want to be liked. I am afraid, like everybody in internet-world, that I won't be noticed.
Despite all my fears however, I don't think that I'm going to stop writing in this blog for a while, even if not one single person reads it. Because the bottom line is, I love to write. And there is something maybe even comforting about the fact that in this most public of places - the internet - I could potentially hone my writing in complete privacy.
Well, that's all we've got time for today. Thank you, family member, for indulging my rambling. I hope to see you again soon. Drive safely. Oh! Don't forget your...magazine, on your way out. Wait. Were you reading that this whole time?
No comments:
Post a Comment