I had some related but scattered thoughts about posting my writing online…
“I’m good enough, I’m smart enough, and dog-gone it, people like me.” -Al Franken as Stuart Smalley on SNL
There’s something goofy about the Internet’s effect on the ego.
“Shout out to my new followers. I will try to entertain and bring you into my world through words. Hope my mind doesn’t bore u. Enjoy!” -Anonymous twitter found on my “local” feed
I guess that part of it is the ability to self-publish. If you go back far enough on this blog, you’ll see some of my own grand ambitions of this nature. It’s silly stuff but at the time it seemed like anything was possible because the Internet is so big and it’s so easy to tell everybody about your brilliant ideas.
“wow like you are so smart and brilliant and that’s never been said before you wanker” -anonymous comment left on this post about two years after I posted it
Of course, as soon as anything is said, the haters emerge. What do they hate? I’m not sure. In some cases, I think it’s the anonymous … er … “loser” effect that Penny-Arcade captured back in 2004. (The comic has profanity, so is probably not work appropriate…but it’s funny in that “oh-so-true” way.)
The other question is “what happens when we no longer control what we’ve created?” -The worlds most brilliant and unrecognized writer (me)
This question that bothered me alot at first. Now I don’t really care much. Eventually, I suspect that whether it’s what we write on the internet or the photos we take with digital cameras, we will all eventually be naked on the Internet (figuratively or otherwise).
If it wasn’t clear, and it probably wasn’t, I believe that enough material to represent my personality will eventually “leak” onto the Internet if I use any of the popular tools, like facebook, where my real name is revealed. If I don’t use those online tools, I miss an experience with my friends and family. So, if I’m going to be part of the social circles that exist in “reality”, I’m going to have to represent myself to those same circles “virtually”.
Key assertion: you don’t publish it unless it’s good. -Seth Godin on How often should you publish?
I like that idea: publish when it’s good. Sometimes I’ve got nothing to say. Other times, I feel like I’ve got too much to say. Thanks to facebook, I now have a place to put the YouTube videos, goofy single links and other bits of random junk I pick up off the Internet. Writing and photographs are the most important artifacts I can leave on the Internet. Links to other sites are far less important and a place like facebook is built for that kind of junk-sharing.
In the meantime, while I share junk links on facebook, I can put my “best foot forward” on a site like this.
Of course, there’s a very good chance you got here from a link via facebook or twitter.
On a long enough timeline. The survival rate for everyone drops to zero. -Chuck Palahniuk, Fight Club (I think)
In the end, not much I say will matter and statistically, I am nobody. At least I’m slowly getting better at writing and communicating what I believe. One day, it might matter to me to have worked through the kinds of ideas that I briefly describe here.
And finally, to loop back around to the start: It’s an important difference: (a) writing about what you believe because you want to be heard by other people versus (b) writing something “good” about what you believe and putting it out there because that’s the only way to test it.
Testing, testing, 1-2-3-4.
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