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.
I had to do a double-take on the date to make sure it was really a new post. So…. you’re back?
I can identify a lot with what you’re saying here. I had multiple blogs, different topics, etc. I get something deeply personal from the act of writing, but the act of publishing to an unknown audience also gave me something.
I remember at one point also thinking… what”s the point anymore? Everyone is going to YouTube, Twitter, Tumblr… all the places that I go myself. And even me, if there are people with independent web sites and blogs out there, I wasn”t even looking for them. So… without even making the conscious decision, I ended up abandoning most of my sites. I still have them, not updated in forever, probably falling apart with unmaintained code and old themes.
But I gotta tell you, even through all of that same period, ever time I got a notice that you had posted something new, I”d get excited. Maybe because I also identified with what you were trying to maintain, and if we were the only two people still doing it that way then maybe it gave me hope… or at least a little excitement to go and read whatever you posted, which was different than just scrolling through the Twitter stream to see what was new.
So…. if you”re really back, and I hope you are, then it just may help inspire me again as well.
For those of us that just might follow you, or somehow find you amidst a stream of all the known social sites, it really does matter that you post. It may be for yourself, but as soon as you publish to the world, never forget its also for others. And you may never know how it effects them. Maybe someone finds a post from a Google search, and ends up being influenced by your words and thoughts. Well you never know. Look, I commented. Wow, that”s a big deal. I would do it again, so keep writing.
Please understand that what I meant when I said these words:
What I meant is that I shouldn’t care if others are reading. In a way it’s like the journals I keep. I don’t write them for public consumption, but I am also well aware that posterity will permit them to be read after my demise, unless I destroy them as I go. The problem with destroying them as I go is that I can’t refer to the past as I move into the future, and observe how I have changed in any “true” and meaningfully reflective way.
I don’t keep my journals for anyone else, and while this is a form of journaling that allows the world to read my thoughts as I commit them, since I never planned to make a profit from this site, I should never have concerned myself with others reading it. Naturally, there is a dose of dopamine returned when I know someone has, but that addiction shouldn’t be the driver for production.
And yes, I do hope from time to time to influence others, but in most things I am only trying to influence myself to be a better version of me.