Successfully Unsuccessful

Every blog needs to have some sort of theme.  A commonality that ties all the posts and all the content together.  That's how you build up a reader base.  You find a group people with similar interests and you cater to them; create a community.  No matter how esoteric your content might be, there will be people that hold that same interest.  That, dear readers is the terrible horror and the radiant beauty of the internet.

My blog was supposed to be about technology, gaming and photography.  To some degree it still slants in that direction, but it’s a far cry from zeroing in on that content.  I’m kind of all over the place.  Sometime I feel like I’ve turned this into a directionless rambling stream of consciousness.  A personal diary made public. This is reinforced by the one and only rule I gave myself when I started this little venture.  My mandate was to always write for myself.  I would not censor myself, cater to or pander to anyone.  I now see the folly in that.  If I’m going to do that, I might have been better served by hiding a little leather bound book under my bed and scribbling "Dear Diary…"

However, I didn’t do that.  I chose a relatively public forum for a reason, and my writing needs to reflect that. In theory almost anyone in the world can read what I write here.  Now if the talking miniature hippo living in my closet were to waddle up to me and ask me, “why?”  What would my answer be?  I do it because I have a compelling need to engage people emotionally.  I want people to read, observe, or interact with content I have created and feel something.  Entertained, happy, introspective, scared, sad, or curious.  I see media of all types that manage to break through that ever thickening layer of cynicism and I feel jealous, I want that.  Everyone has examples of a song that always makes them cry, or movie that you never get sick of, or a book that blew your mind.  How about a video game like Journey?  An experience that lets you connect with a complete stranger to share in a little virtual sojourn.  How many mouths were hanging open in stunned satisfaction as the ending to Bioshock Infinite bowled them over?  I want that.

People always say you want what you can’t have, or in my case, won’t have. What I mean is I don’t deserve to have it.  If I did get it, I would feel guilty about having it and try my hardest to get rid of it.  At least that’s what my sub-conscious would have me believe.  Now we are getting to the heart of the little hippo’s question, and we see that there is some faulty wiring.  You see, I post on this blog because there is a low chance of it becoming successful and a high chance of failure.  You may think that you read that wrong, or possibly that I wrote it wrong. nope.

I’m actually not very afraid of failure.  If people don’t like my writing, and never read it, It doesn’t really bother me all that much.  But what if suddenly thousands of people wanted to read my blog?  Or what if some mainstream legit site wanted me to write for them, and even pay me to do it?  Well, that scares the ever living shit out of me.  Paradoxically this is also what I would love to have happen.
Thus begins the self sabotage.  First off, I should be heeding the advice at the beginning of this post.  I should be making content relevant to a group of people with my common interest, and it should be written for them, not me.  Ironically NOT writing posts like this one.  Next up, as any upstart will tell you, if you want to get your project off the ground, you need exposure.  You need to be all over the Internet hyping up your shit.  you need to be shameless and persistent.  You need to be consistent and regular with new content.  You have to be disciplined enough to do it even when you don’t feel it.  I don’t do any of this, and it keeps me nice and cozily insulated from any kind of positive exposure.

That’s what my life seems to be, a series of non-starts.  I have literally a lifetime of unrealized ideas for short stories, novels, plays, photo shoots, and game designs…some of them might even be good.  Therein lies the problem, if I start to flush out some of these ideas, put a lot of effort into them and make them happen and they turn out shit, well no harm done.  I’ll look like one of those people on America Idol during the audition episodes.  You know the ones that are supremely confident that they are amazing vocalists, only to open their mouths and out come that kind of sounds you think you’d hear in the ninth circle of hell.  It’s kind of amusing, but they leave the audition and just go back to their life, just doing what they do, and enjoying it.    But what if…?  What if some people really like something I do?  What if one of these ideas took off?  I don’t know if I could handle that.  Why should I be successful?  Why should I, when at any given time there are thousand of people better than me at any given discipline.

One step at a time I suppose.  Of all the creative endeavours that I have not pursued, even though I’ve dearly wanted to, one has managed to wrestle it’s way out of my brain and into reality despite all the odds.  Dark Pixels: The Blog.  Huzzah!

So where do I go from here?  Should I re-focus this blog and zero in on technology, games and photography?  Nahh…..I don’t think so.  I like writing posts like this, it helps me to get my mind sorted.  If I’m really lucky, I’ll give someone a chuckle or two, or even get them to do some introspecting of their very own.  As for the other problem, I know what the short answer is:  I should just go for it, and let the chips fall where they may.  Knowing it is a completely different hurdle than doing it, and I don’t know if I can jump high enough yet.

Here’s what I say. If your blog is not on target, don’t re-aim, move the target.  I’m going to create a whole new category of blog, population: me.  I’ll call it “technology and introspection: examining the inner workings of gadgets and the mind.”  Or TI:EIWGM for short.  Doesn’t quite roll off the tongue like I hoped it would, but does have a certain charm, does it not?  If anyone knows of an already existing community of  TI:EIWGM'ers please, point me to them, maybe I can promote Dark Pixels.

For a final blowing of the mind:

I’m afraid of success, but I’ve been so far completely successful in not being a success.  That would make me a failure at being unsuccessful.  So my real problem is that I’m afraid of failing to not fail, which is the one thing I don’t want to do: fail to not fail to be successful.

-jer

P.S. Happy 40th post!  It's about 39.5 more than I thought I'd ever write.