To Be Ignored by Millions: Why I Blog
I have learned that I cannot buy lottery tickets. My personality is such that, immediately upon purchasing a ticket, my mind goes haywire and I start wasting way too much time thinking about what I will do with my winnings, not to mention trying to preemptively decide whether I will go to work the day after my number comes up. It happens that I face a similar problem when it comes to my writing.
I have to draft missives about serious topics every day in my work and have found that reclaiming writing for pleasure makes me happy. I get a real kick out of first ideating, then finessing my thoughts, words, and masturbatory musings onto the page, and finally launching my written spew upon the unsuspecting world.
I used to write extended emails that I would send to a group address of select friends and family, a few of whom were charitable enough to humor me. But with those widely broadcast emails, I faced another version of my lottery ticket problem. Shortly after hitting send on each latest bit of twaddle, I could not help but begin to first pine for and then imagine expectantly the email replies I was sure to soon receive. Despite years of disillusioning experience indicating that few, if any, would actually answer my unrequested dreck, I nevertheless continued to be repeatedly disappointed when responses failed to come.
After repeated encouragement from an especially indulgent uncle, I decided to try posting some things on a website and made an unexpected, liberating discovery. I found that in posting my scrawls on a blog rather than in emails, I could still get all the same joy from my writing hobby, but without the constant discouragement of unrequited love. With no specific audience on which to pin false expectations, putting my spew out there no longer created naïve hopes of fawning riposte. This was more like keeping a diary, like recording only for me and the few folk who might slink into my room when I’m not there to sneak a peek. It was just me pointing out some graffiti on a wall in case anyone fancied a look-see.
Now, I force my missives on no one and instead simply enjoy an untroubled contentment born of the creative act itself, free of the stress of bated-breath anticipation.
● Why settle for an unresponsive dozen when one can be ignored by a billion?
● Why the impolite foist when a submissive transom beckons?
● Why knowingly shed dignity when naïve obliviousness is an alternative?
(Disclaimer: In spite of the above, I am as needy and attention-craving as the next person. As such, I sincerely thank the faceless few who arrive here for your kind willingness to humor me.)
Victim of the Fury 
You are the best and no actual response might come your way but my response is always like this when I get a notification of a victim of the fury post. See it-smile. open it-hope something you say I can relate to or was a part of. read it-laugh and wonder how the hell you care so much about stupid music. continue reading-understand your true meaning in the story or at least come up with a theme. get to the end- think of you and wish you were around more. Exit- anxiously wait for the next one!
Thanks T.L. Much sincere thanks.
I have my computer set up to inform me when you post…so I can read it ASAP.
I always love reading what you’ve written. Please don’t stop!!!
Very nice, thanks.
In search of a VotF fix of one kind or another, I randomly picked a post from yesteryear. This is what the wheel stopped on. I have to say, it slightly freaked me out.
You know that old ‘trust the universe to give you what you need’ idea? The one that encourages you to open the book of your choice at any page and you’ll receive the answer/wisdom you need? Favoured tomes include ‘Guide for the Advanced Soul’ and a thing called the Bible.
Not that I’m wishing to add further apocryphal books to that famous publication, but it seems to work with your blog too. This is what I needed to hear today, having been fretting about who’s visiting, who’s reading, who’s engaging (that’s a rapidly diminishing number in each category). I don’t want fawning, really I don’t (any more than I think you do) but once again I am chastened by the realisation of just how pathetically insecure is the self underneath my ‘writing hobby’. So pathetic that I fantasise ceasing posting to punish the unappreciative peasants. Ha! That’ll show ’em!
The impact on the blogshere will be immediate and profound, just like a post I once saw on a manager’s office door:
‘Dip you hand into a bucket of water and hold it there for a moment. Now remove it. Notice the impact you have made.’
Hope you’re still staring at the stars, Vic.
Turns out you’ve been here before, VC. You’ll find traces if you click on the “Why I Blog” category up under the VotF banner. Until your visit, I had forgotten that I had left this one here when I later re-posted it as its own page. I imagine I left it so as to not lose the supportive comments from some of those mentioned charitable family members that appear above your own. Your generous comment offers further protection against future deletion. Thanks, and glad to have offered something “needed,” albeit unknowingly.
Your comment also spurred me to do something I’d meant to do for a long time, to revise this post. I’d long been bothered by the false humility in my use of words like “dreck” and “spew.” If I’m really writing for myself, I probably ought not to pander to some imagined, judgmental audience. I’ve left this one alone (bending to a misguided sense of honesty about my falsity), but recast the “Why I Blog” version to better reflect what I think the post ought to be. Thanks for the impetus…
Now if I can just see my way to venture more regularly out of my rut to live up to, and benefit from, the claims made here (smile).
You know, I felt a sense of deja vu when I read this but was so caught up in my own narcissistic churnings that I gave the provenance of those feelings little space. Does that matter? There is the idea of the written word being both permanent (footsteps in the sands of time and all that) and immediate (connecting with the ‘now’ (as I tried to capture in my response (I think, I’m not reading it again!))) so that a layering of meaning is not only possible, but seeps through the reader experience (unlike the clumsy joke with the parentheses, above). I dunno Vic. I’m blathering. It’s a pre-breakfast Winter morning, I’m chuffed to have a bit of the old trans-world electron contact with someone whose thoughtfulness and insight I’ve come to appreciate greatly , and I can see in the Comments column (right of screen) that there’s another b&w baby speech bubble awaiting my click. What was I trying to say? Dunno. We all self-delude, are falsely humble, groundlessly demanding of laurels, and fall far short of the shy modesty of our own secret dreams. But as someone said, even those who stumble go not backwards. Or something like that. Where’s the coffee maker?