“Create the kind of communities and ideas you want people to talk about”

I’ve had an idea in my task list for a week or so now, and I just haven’t made the time to write about it, at least not as I originally intended when I read the post that inspired it.

Jamie Rubin wrote his post titled “A Vision for Blogging in 2019” a few weeks ago. He wrote about a return, of sorts, to blogging, and a different perspective on what blogging means to him:

I’m not farming, but reading and writing are my analogs. I like the tone White captured in his essays, and while I am no E. B. White, it is that sense of making the mundane interesting–in reading, in writing, and anything else that comes to mind–that I am aiming for. That’s my vision for this blog in 2019. I hope you’ll stick around for it.

Jamie Rubin

What appeals to me about his vision for his blog is a focus on writing about personal topics, that have significance to him. I’ve seen a lot of talk about this approach to blogging, lately.

Someone else who wrote about this sort approach is Georgie Luhur Cooke who I mentioned previously. Georgie shared her blogging values, and one of those values is that she intends blogging for as long as she enjoys doing it:

Many people have asked if I would stop blogging if no-one read my blog. Although I love my readership and they often influence my decision on what/how to do things on my blog because I care about them – ultimately I write for me. I don’t write for anyone else, and the fact that people love to read my blog only makes it clearer to me that I should continue doing what I love – not continue doing something because other people like it.

Georgie Luhur Cooke

This evening I was flipping through my feeds while I waited for our kids to prepare for bed, and I came across this post by Jason Kottke titled “14 Rules for Maintaining Your Sanity Online“, that quoted from an issue of Discourse. One of the rules caught my attention:

Create the kind of communities and ideas you want people to talk about.

Sean Blanda

It reminds me a little about the excellent advice I was once given. The context was different, but I think it’s relevant to blogging, and what could be construed as my tenuous vision for my blog (at least for the time being).

It’s often tempting to hammer out a post about something that upsets me, or something that’s controversial. There are times to write about upsetting things that matter, sure. At the same time, many of the posts I feel the urge to write would just amount to me lashing out at someone, or something through my blog.

Those sorts of posts would very much be driven by bitterness, and would ultimately detract from the more positive, and constructive stuff I occasionally write here.

There but for the grace of God go you.

Sean Blanda

So when I write something for my blog, I increasingly find myself thinking along the lines of writing something that makes a positive contribution in some way. For the most part, I’m the main recipient of that contribution because I find myself writing about things that I enjoy, people that inspire me, and themes that fascinate me.

And, yes, there are times when I also publish utter nonsense, devoid of any value to anyone (for example, much of 2004 till roughly mid-2006) but, hey, that’s also blogging. It’s imperfect, and definitely a work in progress (with times of regress).

I’m enjoying my blog lately. I’m not sure what changed for me, but I’m just going with it.

I sat down with my notebook recently when I was feeling particularly overwhelmed about life, work, family, and the Universe in general. I sketched out the things that are important to me, looking ahead.

I felt like I really needed to shift to my high altitude view of my life for a bit, and identify some priorities, so I could set aside all the other themes/goals/impulses that make me crazy, and mostly ineffective.

One of my priorities is my blog. Partly that’s because I’m enjoying it. It’s also because I wanted something I could turn to that feels good to do, for various reasons, and also helps me be better.

One of the ways that I feel that I can do that is to write about the things that I’d like to see people talking about. Or, put a better way, I’d like to write about the things that I’d like to have more discussions about because they interest me, fascinate me, or otherwise enrich me.