Sitting on the couch/pew, listening/reading to the wisdom put forth by the priest/preacher/weblog writer on this rainy Sunday morning. Today’s sermon touches beautifully well on the congregation’s/blogging community’s daily thoughts:
You Suck. But Enough About You
Danny Gregory says what we’ve all been thinking/whining about over the last few years; why we write and why we need readers; how we converse with others and what we hear:
Creative people care so very much what others think of them. They ask, "Is it any good?" and then wait not just for what you say but for how you say it. It’s not enough to be effusive in your praise.Put simply: no one is nearly as interested in what you do as you are. No one is judging it as hard as you, or analysing it, or wondering about it. The only time they really get involved is when your success or failure could effect them.And because we are all, at best, living in our own self-reflecting bubbles, you should relax and do what you want.
I doubt that the majority of us who have threatened or actually gone ahead and given up our weblogs do so for other than the reason of feeling that no one is listening, or not enough people, or people who have stopped visiting. With Bloglines or any such RSS feed it is not always apparent when checking stats to know how many "hits" we’re getting, but we still watch them; we care that much. I do try as often as possible to leave comments to let folks know that they’re appreciated; but I do admit that often I fall into the "me too" category of response that Danny suggests is the conversation that people have with each other these days both face-to-face and in writing.
With any luck, I’ll carry his words to heart outside the walls of the Church of Life and remember them on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday…
The Lost Children: A Charity Anthology