The Fool's Errand

"Blogs are whatever we make them. Defining 'blog' is a fool's errand." - Michael Conniff

When blogging was still new—say, about 60 million years ago—there were so few bloggers that it felt like a small community. A village, if you will, with the citizens meeting in each others' comment areas to discuss the different topics we were blogging about. It was a great way to gain inspiration for your next entry, to entice new readers, and to make new friends...

Well, that village has become a huge, sprawling metropolis. There are the high end properties, the slums, the working class neighborhoods and the suburbs, and visiting our favorite blogs can take up an entire weekend. Never mind getting absorbed in conversations in the comments. And then there's the various and sundry social networks to consider. Who has that kind of time?

Sometimes I seriously consider giving the internet a break for a year as an experiment. No writing blogs, no reading blogs, no Facebook, no nothing. Just go back to how life was before the internet gluttonized itself on the world and dominated our consciousness. I think about all I used to get accomplished. I composed an opera and many chamber pieces, I wrote letters and journals, I maintained an incredible garden, and I sculpted. To be honest, though, I was much younger then and I still had a lot of physical energy. When I think about leaving now, I wonder what I could do these days. I'd probably get bored and I certainly become very lonely.

These musings used to come after I'd had a round of attacks from trolls and detractors, but I think I've finally grown that thick skin everyone talks about. They really don't get to me anymore. I just ignore them.

Suppose they thought someone was supposed

to give a rat's ass and nobody came.

Mostly though, I get the urge to close up shop when I start running dry of things to write about.

Over on The Verdant Dude, Earl recently blogged about the rut we bloggers sometimes get into. I commented that after 9 years I often feel like I've written about all there is to write. Besides having covered a lot of ground where my thoughts, ideas, and feelings are concerned, I've also conquered a lot of personal issues and my angst level has become decidedly lower. And no one enjoys reading about the day-to-day every single day, do they? There was the old troll who provided some amusement over at Vienna for Dummies for a day or two, but even he quickly became a honk-shoo. People really don't care about trolls anymore. They have long since lost the scary masks and they've become pitiable laughing stocks. Everyone knows that anything they spew out at and about their victim is a steamin' pile of transferred funk, anyway.

 I doubt I'll ever stop blogging. As long as Blogger exists this blog will be here and, if it closes down, I'll just move house elsewhere. I just wish I was as inspired as I used to be. Maybe, like Earl, I feel I'm in a rut. I may have to start looking for things that will catapult me out of it.

Image courtesy of Data Mining.