Hello darlin, nice to see you

This will likely be long. Best move along if that doesn't fit in your vision of "reading."

Hello internets, here I am. Again. After all these years. How have you been? Me? I'm fantabular. In my bold and daring search for passions, it appears that writing really is (might be?) one of them. I have reason to believe that I'm good (not bad?) at it.* Due to cast of characters that include ennui, laziness, and a lack of home internet, I've been away. I must admit that my hiatus began about the time a friend told me they hadn't read a post of mine because it "was sooooo long." It's not the first time such a criticism has been leveled at me, nor will it likely be the last. I admit that I'm wordy - but I will also argue vehemently that the longest blog post is still merely the size of a magazine article, and not that great of a time investment. One of the beautiful things about the written word, however, is that - most of the time - we have a choice in what we read.

Earlier this week, I launched an attempt to stop complaining for three weeks. Seeing as all of you know me fairly well, you now the gargantuan nature of this task. Now this will be - and to some extent already is - a tremendous failure on my part. It will - and again, already has - help me to think more positively and more deliberately before I open my mouth and emit negativity. With that in mind, the following statements are not intended as complaints, but instead, observations.

Blogging, especially blogging well, is difficult. I have a tremendous amount of respect for those who produce entertaining content multiple times a week. Writing well is a learned skill and thus not that difficult - but writing in a compelling and/or humorous fashion is not near as easy. When writing to an audience large or small, for free or for pay, there is an implied (and perhaps even an explicit) pressure to perform. Not that authors in any medium are deserving of pity, as it's often a writer's own ego that gets them writing in the first place.

Allow me a digression, if you will. As we know, since early this month I've been using Twitter. It's a nice distraction during the workday and it requires little effort. I've also read the Twitter's of dozens and dozens of other people, many of them who are quite "popular" (followers numbering in the thousands). There is an obvious trend (one that I didn't notice from blogs, but probably should have) that is increasingly evident from Twitter and Tumblr: "social media", as it's called, is chock full of people craving acceptance. Both the users and designers of these applications are obssessed with "ranking" users. In both, you can see how many people follow a user (A) and, conversely, how many users they follow (B). Typically, the higher A is in proportion to B, the higher one's "social cache" is on the service. To tell you how "good" your profile is, Twitter has a "grader," while Tumblr has the even more popular (and controversial) "Tumblarity" rankings.*** I've found myself both enthralled and repulsed by these rankings; especially their resultant social climbing, backstabbing, and manipulating of the system. As one user has pointed out, "[social media] isn't like high school - life is like high school."

Back on point, I've found this same lust for acceptance, for reinforcement, affecting my blogging, especially recently. There really are only two ways to discern the "popularity" of a blog: analytics (i.e. Sitemeter) and comments. I eschew the use of Sitemeter because, quite frankly, I can (read: will) become obsessed with it. Yes, it's a self-discipline failing, but true nonetheless. As you already know, this blog is not awash with comments. Most of this is my own fault - a blog's comment count is likely directly proportional to it's reader count and I'm fiercely territorial about who has explicit access to my blog. I have never used a password-restriction - but that's about the only paranoid blogger thing I have not done. That is not to say I'm exhorting you to comment willy-nilly, or hell, that you even have to read this thing anymore.

To connect us back to the initial paragaph - mind you, I don't outline this shit, I shoot from the hip - I enjoy writing. I plan on doing some of it here, when the mood strikes. Yes, I will still be dropping little pyramids of poo on the internet's front yard over on my Twitter, but there are times 140 characters of dung just will not do.

* A few weeks ago I had to turn in a written review of my recruiting year to a co-worker. Even though my findings were not the pillowy mattress of marshmallow-y goodness she was hoping for, she said she was "very impressed by the writing - you should write for a living." It's possible that she simply wants me out of my current job. I best take it at face value.

** In fact, two of the most interesting and edifying written pieces I've read in the last 6 months were long-form magazine articles, both from Vanity Fair. This one, from 1996, and this one, much more recent.

*** If you ever desire to see just how petty, elitist, narcissistic, pretentious, and downright mean Tumblr users can be, I suggest you check out "Unfollow Friday," a right proper distillation of the Tumblr ethos.