{"id":1050,"date":"2011-10-10T14:52:43","date_gmt":"2011-10-10T18:52:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wizardwalk.com\/newblather\/?p=1050"},"modified":"2011-10-10T14:52:43","modified_gmt":"2011-10-10T18:52:43","slug":"blogging-fatigue-is-for-fools","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/wizardwalk.com\/newblather\/?p=1050","title":{"rendered":"Blogging fatigue is for fools!"},"content":{"rendered":"

This blog post asks: Is blog fatigue on the rise?<\/a><\/p>\n

For some it\u2019s the negativity that comes with putting yourself out there. Some people have run out of ideas. Some people have taken a look at the cost\/benefit and decided it wasn\u2019t worth it. And some just forget to post.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

For me, one of the nice things about blogging is you can do it whenever you want<\/em> and about whatever you want<\/em>. Some people seem to view it more like an obligation, thinking they must post some certain amount of posts every month or week, or they must post only about certain topics, or whatever. I can understand why that might be fatiguing. But I don\u2019t understand why some bloggers want to make that their goal in the first place. Unless you\u2019re somehow making some good money blogging (which, to be fair, some people are, and plenty of fools are trying), why are you giving yourself another useless chore to do?<\/p>\n

Instead, blog for yourself, purely out of your own interest, because you\u2019re interested in having records of your own interesting thoughts. (That doesn\u2019t mean your blog can\u2019t be helpful; that might be what interests you. The point is that your own interest is the blog\u2019s guiding light, not some self-created duty to society.) If you don\u2019t post for a week, or a month, that doesn\u2019t mean you\u2019re tired of blogging, it just means you\u2019re not interested sometimes, which is natural.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s why I\u2019ve never understood when people write things like: \u201csorry I haven\u2019t blogged in a while.\u201d Or: \u201cI promise to blog a lot more often from now on.\u201d Um. OK. Thanks? Unless you\u2019re a huge celebrity, it\u2019s unlikely anyone really cares that much. And you\u2019re not blogging for the world anyway, you don\u2019t owe<\/em> anyone your blog posts, and you don\u2019t have to be sorry or explain yourself if you don\u2019t post for a while.<\/p>\n

As for the negativity: Yes, I agree the anonymity of the web can foster a greater amount of negativity, but why let it bother you? Someone insulting you doesn\u2019t change who you are, and if they\u2019re anonymous, they don\u2019t even really know<\/em> you anyway, so they\u2019re not really insulting you personally<\/em>.<\/p>\n

If you just don\u2019t like defending your point of view when people disagree with you, you don\u2019t have to. Sometimes you\u2019ll address an issue, and people will bring it up over and over. Just ignore those comments; if they were really seeking an answer (instead of just bating you on or overreacting emotionally themselves), they\u2019d find your answer. If you\u2019re afraid you\u2019re point of view will make you look like an idiot, maybe you\u2019re view is wrong. If you can\u2019t admit that to yourself (after all, everyone is sometimes wrong), then you\u2019ve probably got bigger problems than \u201cblogging fatigue.\u201d In my teens and early twenties (not long ago), I used to have arguments in online forums about things like music and art philosophy, and it was amazing how many people, adults in their 40s and 50s even, would get extremely defensive and insulted when someone dared disagree with them about something. I can certainly understand a certain debate getting old because people make the same old arguments over and over and aren\u2019t really interested in reading what you write and addressing the points you\u2019re making, but to avoid disagreements out of self-doubt or lack of confidence, and then still assuming your point of view is undoubtedly right, would make you a hypocrite. If you don\u2019t have the confidence to question your own beliefs, then your beliefs will remain flimsy-wimsy, and why would you want that? I guess what I\u2019m saying is: embrace disagreement. Not for the sake of itself, but for the sake of your own honest understanding of things, because sometimes you are wrong, or your understanding of something is at least incomplete. Don\u2019t view disagreement itself as negativity (though, of course, emotional overreactions can be laced with disagreements and negativity, but you should be able to tell which is which; don\u2019t use negativity as an excuse to not consider the disagreement).<\/p>\n

OK, that was a bit of a digression, and I\u2019m not sure disagreement was what was meant by \u201cnegativity\u201d anyway, but I think it\u2019s a huge possibility, considering the amount of people who lack the confidence to truly defend their point of view (or simply resort to emotional outbursts when they try to).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This blog post asks: Is blog fatigue on the rise? For some it\u2019s the negativity that comes with putting yourself out there. Some people have run out of ideas. Some people have taken a look at the cost\/benefit and decided it wasn\u2019t worth it. And some just forget to post. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true},"categories":[101],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7gI4B-gW","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/wizardwalk.com\/newblather\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1050"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/wizardwalk.com\/newblather\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/wizardwalk.com\/newblather\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wizardwalk.com\/newblather\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wizardwalk.com\/newblather\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1050"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/wizardwalk.com\/newblather\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1050\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/wizardwalk.com\/newblather\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1050"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wizardwalk.com\/newblather\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1050"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wizardwalk.com\/newblather\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1050"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}