Blogging is Done
A year went by and I wrote nothing on my blog. I Tweeted, I Flickr'ed and I Instagrammed. I Facebooked (anonymously) and contributed to the Trooper Facebook page. I also did some writing - fiction and non - but didn't even consider publishing it there.
I think blogging is done. Not just my blog, but blogging generally. It's probably been done for at least a couple years but I was so damned busy with other things I didn't notice. My own fascination with personal blogs ended several years ago. I lost interest as the people I followed re-invented their online focus or just stopped publishing. I understand. Hosting a one-man/woman online salon, where you're expected to share the things that delight or confound you with some regularity, can easily become less an adventure and more a burden.
Especially in view of the alternatives. Twitter (up until a week ago) will only let you you share 140 characters or less. Instagram only requires #hashtags. Sharing a Facebook post that mirrors your views has a similar effect to writing down and publishing those views yourself - but is accomplished by a single click of the share button. And, of course, a picture is worth thousand words.
But there's still no shortage of words these days. Differentiating useful "content" in the midst of a digital avalanche has become a part-time job for those of us who care about knowledge, facts and truth. Looking back, I can see that I was more and more reluctant to add to that overloaded public discourse with anything less than a well considered contribution. Or maybe that was just an excuse - because writing is hard.
I am still a big fan of this future we get to live in, and I still want to have a home in this online world. I'm looking around out there, trying to imagine the next version of this blog/site/thing. I have some ideas. And I think it should be called an "Album", not a Blog.