You know, when I started this blog, I had grand expectations. I wanted to have a large number of people following me daily, reading all of my words, and then sharing their comments on my grand and fascinating life.

For some reason (even though I am pretty awesome), that never happened. Perhaps my sheer verbosity was so encumbering that people simply could not participate in a way that ameliorated the conversation or in a way that would not seem completely extraneous.

Yeah, I was just throwing out some old vocab words I remembered from school. They all fit, but it doesn't really mean anything.

Anyway. Nobody ever really commented. And I think I know why. I often shared some of my opinions, but mostly, I stuck to being chronological. I didn't share tons of insight into what I was thinking or learning. Just what I was doing. Ok, well, I'd also argue that I shared a lot of my thoughts through the sarcasm and jokes and humor, but still. We all know you skipped over the middle parts of my writing anyway. And I know a few people searched for their names and only read those parts. I know. I know.

I read a lot of blogs. I comment on a lot of them. For a while, I did this so that they'd also comment on my blog. This was a tactic I learned from the days of having "guestbooks" on websites. Yeah... If you had a website in 1996, you know what I'm talking about. That tactic doesn't really apply anymore. Most people simply want to read anonymously and if they do want to share a comment, it's either in a discussion-type forum or they only want to share when there is something to contribute to.

And, after all, let's think about that. Who wants to contribute when all I ever wrote about is what I did during the day? "Uh, yeah, Joe, I agree... you work a lot... thanks for reminding us...".

I had a conversation last weekend about this with my friend Catie. She recently started a blog. Reading how she expressed thoughts and ideas and concepts immediately put me back in my mindset of fear that stopped me from blogging when I first started this whole thing back in 2005. (For those that have been following the story... you know about that, for those that haven't, well, it was called, "A blog of how your life COULD be", and it was a pretty awesome blog). I used to write my opinions on that blog and thought nothing of it. However, whenever my writing caused conflict, my first tendency was to either delete the offending text, or to completely ignore that person that was offended by my writing. Because, let's be honest, either what I wrote they misinterpreted, or, what I wrote they misinterpreted, right?

I have always hated conflict. I'm a pretty peaceful person, and somewhere along the way, I just assumed that I'd never be capable of writing something that would offend somebody else. As I kept that old blog, I finally decided that I just didn't have a good handle on my emotions (or, at least, expressing them online). I wasn't comfortable with putting my thoughts and expressions out there for people to read and possibly criticize/discuss.

I think that caused me, to a degree, to want to avoid any real deep expression of opinion on this blog. I did it from time to time, but I always forced myself to keep the mindset of, "Would I take this and go read it to every single person I know or might know and not offend them?" That can make for some pretty boring reading. So, I stuck to the chronological thing. It worked.

And the thing is, I like the chronological style of writing. Over time, I started to feel pressure from the people following me ("reading often or daily"), to fully inform them of my days and actions, for the sake of making the story that much more complete. I have often felt like if I could devote all day to writing, that I would and easily could. My mind is so active that it's easy for me to sit and write out everything I've done in the last day, week, or month. I suppose that's a good thing and a bad thing. I still don't know why I'm so good with dates.

I think people are looking for more than chronological writing. And a side of me wants to contribute in that way, revealing more of my thoughts. It's a style of writing I've always enjoyed, and it will be new and refreshing challenge for me to consider how that might look.

So what does that mean? I don't know. As much as I would enjoy returning to a daily posting habit of writing about my days, I don't think it's for the best. I have found a certain freedom that I have come to enjoy about not having to write about every little thing. It has nothing to do with not wanting accountability, but rather, sometimes I just didn't have the energy to fully articulate how I felt about a particular part of my day. And I hated doing anything half-heartedly.

I have no immediate plans to disable this blog. However, at this time in my life, I want to focus on a different style of writing, and this doesn't suit it.

Now, feel free to comment on THAT... or not.

Later,

Joe