Why bother blogging?
I’m supposed to be writing a blog right now. Instead, I’m pretending to type while observing the hunched man across the communal table, who looks like Lewis Black fallen on hard times. His hair is greasy and thinning, spots on his amorphous button-up shirt, and a stained paper coffeecup close at hand, even though we’re sitting in the coffeeshop.
He looks like a scientist who’s spent too much time in the lab. He looks like the parents’ least favorite bus driver. He looks like a calm madman, glaring at his crotch as if it holds the answer, and occasionally starting sentences like “I don’t know why…” and “It would work if…” but never finishing them, just exploding in sighs and more staring.
Coffee, postre, and a journal in El Salvador
Now from his lap he takes a clump of papers, green ink notes and revisions. He’s a writer. Of course he’s a writer. Crapola. It feels like A Christmas Carol, and he’s the Ghost of Careers future. Why would I want to do that? A writer friend’s words come stabbing up from where they lodged in my ear: “You’re young enough, have you considered getting out of this bullshit profession before it’s too late?” Yes I have. Regularly.
Today is just one of those days. When everything is…just not…doable. I picked up the weights for my wee morning exercise, and…put them down again. Once doesn’t count. Crunches are usually the easy part, but I lay down on K’s old yoga mat and just…lay there. Feeling heavy. One, two. Three. So heavy. Breakfast happened. Cereal. The only crunching I’ll do today.
Pollo and palabras in Peru
I should work on something more substantive, but the thought runs rancid in my stomach. Okay, let’s start with a blog. But here I am, almost five years into blogging, aware that whether I spend all day or twenty minutes producing a post, it will debut in a mild spasm of links and email notifications, then live maybe six hours before it withers, fossilized under a layer of sandwich instagrams.
Every now and then I get a notification of a comment in an old blog, and feel a spark of joy: those words live! Then I read the comment and find only google translated spam from accounts with names like Acne Scar Removal and Cheap Nike Air Max.
Comida, cafe, and a diary in Havana
(My personal favorite: “Thanks so much and I am taking a look forward to touch you.”)
So when I got a comment last night for a 2012 post about an orphanage in Ecuador, I assumed it was just another spammer. But no! A real human read the post and now wanted to visit Hogar Para Todos. I emailed them the contact info, thinking Now that was a blog worth posting. It got information about something good out to more good people. That is what these e-things are supposed to do.
So that’s one. Then I noticed that one of y’all precious long-time readers had liked nine of my posts in a row. And the best part? The time-stamps showed that she actually read them. And to put frosting on the awesome: she donated to Alvaro’s fund at the end of it. Another blog worth posting…
Mystery words and mystery meats in Kuala Lumpur
And I realized one other thing while rereading the blog about the orphanage. It’s…not great. Not awful, but…I’d write it differently today. So? So I’m not taking an MFA program, and haven’t been able to rummage up a writing group around here, but regular blogging does seem to be having an effect on helping me put words together. Given the more substantial project I’m working on, that alone is reason to continue.
So if old posts might come around the mountain (riding six white horses) and inspire someone in some way…
And if new posts might hold the attentions of other interesting people…
And if the blogging itself helps my main project…
But there’s one other important factor: do I enjoy this?
Well. My coffee’s gone, but a vague smile remains. And somehow I don’t feel quite as heavy as I did this morning… I think I’ll keep doing this. And, to help myself and my regular readers, I’m adjusting my posting intentions to every Tuesday and Friday.
And poor tortured Lewis? He never did finish one of those sentences, but when he left a minute ago, there was a certain giddyup in his gait, the ebullience of a man enjoying his life. Maybe this word-stuff isn’t so bad after all, at least, not once you get going.
See you on Friday, when I’ll tell you about the more uplifting rest of the day.
I think those comments are the ones that restart a love of these things that we do.
It’s like when I lay down at night and hear the planes flying overhead to Sydney Airport it’s a constant rush for me to cement my next trip. My next escape. My next somewhere that’s not here.
I wish I had a similar thing with blogging. Sometimes I find it hard to put the jumble of things in my head into written form. Maybe I need to set alarms or something 🙂
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Oy, I feel your pain on the airport teasing. There are three major airports in this area, and like sea gulls drop windshield polka dots, those big metal birds drop packages of wanderlust. Maybe one of these days you’ll catch one to the same place I do, and I can post “A cup of tea with Spankalicious.”
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That’s exactly what it’s like 🙂
And you never know, those packages in the sky could mean I’ll hold you to that tea! I’ve already got the itch for next trip and hate that I have to wait till next year!
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Excellent! I’m feeling much the same way. A New Year’s trip is in the works, but that’s far too far away! I want “far” to be much closer.
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Ohh pray tell where are you jetting off to?
I maybe going to Samoa in December. A friend won a weeks accommodation there so we may run away and chase coconuts together for a summer escape. Well and drink all their rum. Is that what you drink on a tropical island? It will be my first Island experience that isn’t Australian 😉
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The salient question is, in fact, why? Sounds like you’re well on your way to formulating an answer.
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Maybe it’s different for more externally ambitious people, but I am reminding myself to do these things for ME; if others like them it’s a beautiful bonus.
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I find that there are days like these for me too, especially when I’m already busy enough with work. And then, I’ll get a comment from a reader and it makes me feel good to think that someone is actually reading and interested in it. So it kind of pushes me a bit to do so sometimes too. Cheers! 😄
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Hey thanks!
You’ve made me regret not paying much attention to taking dinky photos of local food/drink in travel settings.
Good luck with the big project 🙂
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I’d get home from a trip and someone would ask me “What did you eat in ___?” and I would have only fuzzy recollections. “Um…I think…there were legs in it?” So now if it’s interesting, or a beautiful moment (El Salvador pastry), and I am not foolishly taking myself too seriously to look like a goober (which I undoubtedly do already) then I’ll grab one. They’re nice for reminiscence.
Thanks!
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Thanks for visiting my blog! I really enjoyed your post today. I love how we judge our inside to others outsides never knowing what really is going on – until after reflection we stop! You get to travel – it must be a passion that guides you- orherwise why do it???? I write so that i can uplift my soul and the benefit is that it may help another- so nice to hear when it does! So keep writing- it is in itself taking you on another parallel adventure- two trips in one! What is better than that- ahhh synchronicities!!!! Best- meg
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Judging our insides against others’ outsides. I like that. Or rather, I like that way of TALKING about it, I don’t particularly like DOING it! That’s a good reminder, thank you. And I’ll keep writing if you do! 😉
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“fossilized under a layer of sandwich instagrams.”
See? For that sentence alone. Sometimes I think we need to remind ourselves why we do this (and for that, we need to have a goal) because it’s not a fast road to fame and glory. But with a more substantial project in the works (intriguing) hopefully you’ll have that spring in your step on more days than not, and when not, there’s always the coffee.
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Ah yes, the coffee. I’ve been getting ocular migraines now and then, and caffeine seems to help, so I count that as a prescription for cappuccino.
I think this road does indeed lead to fame and glory…as long as we carefully (re)define what those words mean… Well, glory, anyway.
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“it will debut in a mild spasm of links and email notifications, then live maybe six hours before it withers, fossilized under a layer of sandwich instagrams”
I totally relate.
It’s not all sandwiches though. It’s layers of cats and babies too!
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Ah yes, the cats and babies, never underestimate those two. I didn’t mention them for fear of their respective mafias. Just admitting that and I feel a pressure to start using a pseudonym… If you find me under a bridge somewhere, lightly scratched and battered with teething rings, you’ll know what happened.
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For what it’s worth the reasons I’ve found to blog are that I like writing, and writing a lot makes me a better writer. I cringe a bit looking at some older thing that I couldn’t write like that anymore, but, that cringe is partly a reflection of being better at doing this writing thing I like so much.
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I’m definitely finding the same thing. There is a lot of talk about the Camino de Santiago around here lately, and I went back and reread a couple of my posts from back then….ug! “Blogging: like a free MFA, only totally unstructured.” Not the greatest slogan, but it’ll do for now.
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