Sifting through the ruins of a dying blog has me in a reflective mood today. The author, you don't really need to know the name, has been neglecting it for a long time - nearly three years. The links are breaking and there's graffiti on nearly every page where passing bags of dicks decided to rest their loads just long enough to smear the wall with their shit. It's the blogging equivalent of walking into an abandoned building after the dope heads have had their way with it and gangs of teens have groped and fucked their way through every inch of the building.
In spite of all the debris I find myself reading through the blog in the hopes that there might be something worth saving instead of all the trash and broken needles I'm wading through. Perhaps there will be an idea worth remembering, or maybe some hidden truth that the author discovered shortly before leaving everything behind and returning to the real world.
Vain hopes that haunt me when I'm looking at a dead blog.
The more of these dead blogs that I read through the clearer the picture becomes that too often people find themselves at a loss for what to say. Sometimes when they leave they know they're not coming back and they'll tell you; at others they argue against the inevitability of their disappearance. Yet no matter how they leave their blogs behind it seems like they have looked within themselves and found that there is no great depth beyond the reflective surface of their inner lives. There is nothing else to draw on. No new stories.
Did they forget that blogging is an extension of themselves? Or did they forget that just because you talk about Dungeons and Dragons today doesn't mean that you can't talk about Art tomorrow? There are no good answers for these questions because their authors are silent. They've moved on in the world and have forgotten about the tiny corners where they mattered. They've left behind the friendships they forged with strangers and the private battles they waged on meaningless battlefields.
Will I be like them tomorrow?
Charles is not easy to predict what might happen in the future. There may be a thousand reasons why one abandons a project and not necessarily this is just for lack of motivation, boredom or because she/he has nothing more to say.
ReplyDeleteWhen I think back to my past, long enough, I believe I can count at least a couple of abandoned projects without completing them, and I think that very few can say they did not have any. :)
"I think that very few can say they did not have any. "
DeleteTrue story my friend.
Sad and true.
ReplyDeleteI rotate between a number of topics related to game design -- and mostly talk about design -- but also post campaign ramblings and sometimes have a comic going.
--Dither
Right on!
DeleteIt happens. Some bloggers just get burned out. There's a lot of effort to blogging--writing quality posts, interacting with others, reading a lot of other blogs--and if you don't like it in the first place you're not going to do it. And if you love it that's no guarentee you'll be in it for the long haul.
ReplyDeleteI have no idea if you'll be like them tomorrow, but you've built a great blog for today. And that's what matters.
"I have no idea if you'll be like them tomorrow, but you've built a great blog for today. And that's what matters."
DeleteThank you, that's one of the coolest thing's I've read today!