One of the newer bloggers asked me how I handle silence from readers and I laughed because I wasn’t certain if they were taking a shot or sincere.
I picked up the mouse and started talking to it and then shook my head at the silence.
“What, you can’t respond? I have written a 100,000 words and you can’t say anything.”
They didn’t see me act out my sarcastic scene nor the face I made when I tried to figure out how many words I have written. Has to be more than 100,000.
It takes some love for writing to keep pumping out content when you don’t get feedback. It takes even more when you intentionally write for others and get no response.
Maybe it is stupidity, or maybe it is making like the Wichita Linemen and having the capability to listen through the wires.
Or maybe it is a determination to just keep updating the public and the private with this sense that you’ll find the right combination of words. The ones that motivate and inspire a response.
And it takes a moment to remember it is not 2004 anymore. People have 18,000 different places to be online and the novelty of commenting and community isn’t what it used to be.
A man asked me what I think about long term relationships and whether they are meant to last forever.
I said no and I did it without hesitation.
“It makes no sense to me to stay involved in something where you just pass the days with no belief that it can get better than that. There are always going to be ups and downs, but there is a limbo that sucks the life out of you too.
I hate the idea of being stuck there, it is intolerable.”
We went deeper and wider than what you see there because a real discussion requires that but you won’t see that here.
That is ok, you don’t need to see or know everything and if you think you do you ought to ask.
No promises I will respond and no guarantees I will ignore.
You can set a clock by my willingness to tell you what I think about things. Doesn’t mean I won’t try to be kind or diplomatic but some topics don’t leave much room for that.
Especially as I get older I find it more challenging to not be extra blunt, especially outside of work.
The answer to who you share your life doesn’t require a decision set in stone or an inability to make adjustments.
People change and sometimes those who walked with us no longer serve the same role as they did. It is equally foolish to say we have to change periodically as it is to say we never should.
Who we were in our twenties and thirties isn’t necessarily who we are in our forties, fifties and beyond.
Why do we continue doing it even if it’s silent sometimes? Because it’s what we do; ’nuff said. Why do people do knitting, painting, or playing Sudoku… because it’s what they do and it brings them comfort.
As for 100,000 words… you’ve had to have written way more than that. This year, on my business blog, I wrote an article that nearly hit 9K words and that blog’s nearly 17 years old. Based on how long you’ve been writing, and how long your articles generally are, you’ve probably surpassed War And Peace, if barely (and I’m assuming it’s much higher).
Ah Mitch, you made me smile with this one because it all resonates with me. It makes so much sense and for that I am grateful.
You’re probably correct about the word count, been blogging in one form or another since 2004, though I think I might have actually started and stopped briefly in 2003.