There was a time….

The first iteration of Dave’s Not Here… was a livejournal.com website. Then I ever so briefly moved things over to typepad.com and then to movabletype. When I decided to self-host I moved it to WordPress, and I was a fairly regular blogger for a few years.

What ended all of that was a decision that the Social Media policy of my then-employer changed to be so draconian that I was fearful of termination and decided to quit blogging.

With the rise of Social Media and Facebook, Twitter, and other sites I’d occasionally put something out here on Dave’s Not Here… but it wasn’t always the best representation of me, as can be seen in some of the posts below.

I also saw the near complete end of what I was doing here – because for some reason I was arrogant enough to believe that readership was the goal.

I never should have cared if you, or anyone else read this blog. I should only have cared about the blog being here for me. My hubris over the value of my utterances turned into a sort of depression about losing readers to social media.

When in fact, I shouldn’t have cared. I’m not writing this for you.

I’m writing this for me.

So, I’ll write what I want, and I’ll write it for me, and I won’t impose on myself a goal, or a genre, or a direction – all of these have had the opposite effect and led to the end of content.

I have more to say than that. But I only have it to say to myself. If you like it, certainly, contribute to the discussion. If you hate it, certainly, try to change my mind. I’m open to dialogue. I find that I’m more often wrong than right.

The Past Cannot be Undone

Sometimes it can be erased.

Sometimes it can be white-washed.

Sometimes it can be forgotten.

But it is indelibly part of the present.

Someone, somewhere, has copies, or screenshots of some of my most embarrassing posts here on Daves-not-here, and while I can wish them away, I can’t make them disappear forever.

They are a part of me.

For those of you who read them, they are a part of you, at least partially integrated into you.

For those of you who preserved them, they are fully integrated into you because you found either a positive or negative future value in them. I am a part of you. You can never remove me from yourself.

When your death arrives, as it will, the part of me that you integrated into yourself will be passed on to your children.

In this sense, we are both immortal and will live forever through your children.

Thank you for your part in making me, and whatever ideas I have had, and their influence on you, immortal.