I tried to start a conversation about what it takes to stand out in a crowded world, and what makes each of us unique. The conversation never really got rolling. I blame that not on you, my friends, but on our semi-benevolent overlords at WordPress. I don’t know if you know this or not, but WordPress is dying.
Okay, that might not be fair. Maybe it is now so big that nobody can keep up, or actually read any posts. All I know is that the stats are falling every year. Am I less interesting? I doubt it. I do know that a lot of very interesting people have left. Because what do we get for the work we do here? Yes, I am a stat monkey. Yes, I like the numbers. But I like real conversation a lot more.
I have that post over there at the very top of my sidebar. It has 44,662 comments on it. It is the most commented-upon single blog post in history done by a nonfamous individual. We invented the chat room blog post. We used to have parties in there on weekends. We were going to turn it into a book. Now, all the people who used to hang out in there are gone. I can barely get new people to leave a single comment there. I used to not be able to keep up with replying to them all.
What is happening here? Are we on a sinking ship, the last rats waiting to flee to the lifeboats until it is too late? Are we just scrolling through endless walls of blog posts and hitting the like button? Does anybody actually come here and see my blog front page? I would love your thoughts on this.
As for the original idea behind this series of posts, I will just say this.
I am lucky in that I was born interesting. Not in all good ways, mind you. But I am all-art-side-or-the-brain, and have crack squirrels living in my head. And I go out of my way to be interesting, and have an interesting life. I have stories to tell. I work hard to be unique. I go out and find experiences. I take glass blowing classes and learned to blacksmith. I travel. I do weird things. I put effort into being myself.
I hoped to have a conversation about this, but maybe conversation isn’t what blogs are for anymore. Am I wrong? Am I right? Are you reading these words?
Pouring My Art Out 