Like way too many twenty-somethings in the Summer of 2003, I indulged in the weekly guilty pleasure that was The O.C. (Only Season 1…and – fine – part of the way into Season 2, lest you think too poorly of me.) For a brief while, the Seth Cohen character became something of a patron saint for me – giving me hope that being a cool nerd or nerdily cool was something to which I could hope to aspire. He identified his life as one of insecurity and paralyzing self-doubt, and I’m focused on just that issue today.
I’m not the mission statement type. If I had sat around trying to decide why to blog or what I’d hoped to get out of blogging before I actually set up a blog, I’d probably never have gotten around to it. If, as countless high school teachers (and my legal writing prof) insisted, a thesis sentence was a prerequisite to every paragraph, I’d never succeed in putting pen to paper.
That said, I’m also not wholly a fly-by-the-seat-of-her-pants type of girl. I have whys and wherefores. I just don’t always have them fully fleshed out before I begin to speak or write.
Truth be told, and I suppose blogs are, or this blog is, supposed to be about telling the truth (for all the world, or at least those who happen onto your URL), I’m more someone who, after muddling at length over whether to or whether not to do something, say something, etc., takes a deep breath and plunges in. For better or for worse. I jump off the diving board, and hope there’s water in the pool.
It usually works out okay.
Given what I’ve seen of blogs, at least in the three some odd years I’ve been reading them, often there’s room for them to evolve. A blog may start out as being about one thing, and then evolve, and then evolve again. So if I don’t set out too many rules for myself just yet – if I just consider this a work in progress – then I’ll probably be okay.
It’s hard to be sure. I’m writing this now without a clue as to what my readership will be. Will I have a constituency – a readership? Will people discover this site weeks or months or years down the road and read my archives so they get to hear the story from the beginning? Will friends and siblings and parents – and former classmates and colleagues and bosses and ex-boyfriends – read this and nod appreciatively to yourselves, or snicker, or be outright horrified?
It’s not as if this blog is, or will become, the sum total of everything I feel or think. But there’s no doubt that it is, and will remain, what I put out there of myself for public consumption. I’ve yet to decide if I want to give myself permission to air my dirty laundry, or my petty thoughts for anyone with an Internet connection, a keyboard, and fingers to see.
And yet….
And yet I have the advantage of hindsight. I’ve gone back to the incipient posts of some of the blogs I read regularly. To be sure, there is plenty of rambling about nothing to be found there. Some of it makes for surprisingly interesting reading.
So maybe I have to give myself permission to write, unfettered, about whatever comes to mind. Maybe the voyeur in you will want to read about my laundry lists and hangnails and nonsensical dreams and what I ate for dinner last night. Or maybe you won’t want to read those postings, but you’ll like enough other stuff that you’ll put up with them. Or maybe you won’t frequent my blog. Or maybe you’ll write me hatemail.
Maybe I’m not writing for you at all anyway.
I just don’t know yet. But I guess that’s what this is all about. Here I am, shouting into the void, waiting to see what sticks, and what comes back. Here I am – trying my damnedest not to be so paralyzed that I tremble to push the “Publish Post” button. Here I am, blogging.
I’m not the mission statement type. If I had sat around trying to decide why to blog or what I’d hoped to get out of blogging before I actually set up a blog, I’d probably never have gotten around to it. If, as countless high school teachers (and my legal writing prof) insisted, a thesis sentence was a prerequisite to every paragraph, I’d never succeed in putting pen to paper.
That said, I’m also not wholly a fly-by-the-seat-of-her-pants type of girl. I have whys and wherefores. I just don’t always have them fully fleshed out before I begin to speak or write.
Truth be told, and I suppose blogs are, or this blog is, supposed to be about telling the truth (for all the world, or at least those who happen onto your URL), I’m more someone who, after muddling at length over whether to or whether not to do something, say something, etc., takes a deep breath and plunges in. For better or for worse. I jump off the diving board, and hope there’s water in the pool.
It usually works out okay.
Given what I’ve seen of blogs, at least in the three some odd years I’ve been reading them, often there’s room for them to evolve. A blog may start out as being about one thing, and then evolve, and then evolve again. So if I don’t set out too many rules for myself just yet – if I just consider this a work in progress – then I’ll probably be okay.
It’s hard to be sure. I’m writing this now without a clue as to what my readership will be. Will I have a constituency – a readership? Will people discover this site weeks or months or years down the road and read my archives so they get to hear the story from the beginning? Will friends and siblings and parents – and former classmates and colleagues and bosses and ex-boyfriends – read this and nod appreciatively to yourselves, or snicker, or be outright horrified?
It’s not as if this blog is, or will become, the sum total of everything I feel or think. But there’s no doubt that it is, and will remain, what I put out there of myself for public consumption. I’ve yet to decide if I want to give myself permission to air my dirty laundry, or my petty thoughts for anyone with an Internet connection, a keyboard, and fingers to see.
And yet….
And yet I have the advantage of hindsight. I’ve gone back to the incipient posts of some of the blogs I read regularly. To be sure, there is plenty of rambling about nothing to be found there. Some of it makes for surprisingly interesting reading.
So maybe I have to give myself permission to write, unfettered, about whatever comes to mind. Maybe the voyeur in you will want to read about my laundry lists and hangnails and nonsensical dreams and what I ate for dinner last night. Or maybe you won’t want to read those postings, but you’ll like enough other stuff that you’ll put up with them. Or maybe you won’t frequent my blog. Or maybe you’ll write me hatemail.
Maybe I’m not writing for you at all anyway.
I just don’t know yet. But I guess that’s what this is all about. Here I am, shouting into the void, waiting to see what sticks, and what comes back. Here I am – trying my damnedest not to be so paralyzed that I tremble to push the “Publish Post” button. Here I am, blogging.
It’s as good a place to start as any.
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