# I received a spam email that was nothing to do with blogging (it was actually a crappy attempt at cross linking) but the title really grabbed me: "People deserve blogs that love them back."
I thought it would make a great subheading for someone:
"The blog that loves you back!"
I instantly went back to the ideas around what a blog is and what it enables.
Some are lucky enough to know exactly what they want their blog to do or to be, they have a purpose and a direction. That's not what I thought my blog was. My blog is an extrapolation of self, an incoherent jumble, a messed up, contradictory amalgam.
There is no real plan, no overarching theme or story, just the ramblings of someone who wishes he was more than he is. Someone who wishes he had a purpose or direction.
I am that messed up, contradictory amalgam and the blog reflects this. As such I'm glad it's now the way it is: an honest reflection, not something trying to be what it's not. I spent way too long doing that.
It made me revisit the idea that a blog is a relationship and the relationships between people who have not met, may never meet, are what has fuelled me for a while - it's the main reason I began the muse-letter. People from different cities, countries, cultures who can bypass politics, ideals and geography; people whose stories become intertwined, even if only briefly, thanks to our ability to put a few words on the web.
I love my blog as it provides an outlet I wouldn't otherwise have; it provides a sense of achievement and a psychological boost, something to hold on to when times are tough. That may seem a bit twee but sometimes it's all there is.
Most importantly, it creates a link to others, to those that stumble across it or have subscribed for a while, who read the words and respond in whatever fashion they deem appropriate. To those people, I hope the blog loves you back.
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# Liked 100 Words for a COVID-19 world - Nicholas Bate...
"More human being, less human doing."
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# Liked As a former social media analyst, I'm quitting Twitter - David Hates Things...
"It's rather ironic, then, that the reason I want to quit Twitter is that it delivered on its promise of connecting the world in a global community."
Via Doug Belshaw
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# I try to avoid writing about politics but I was surprised that I'd not written about any US elections before and only discussed a UK general election once.
Then I remembered that until 2014 the blog was almost entirely focused on discussing social media. The reboot only happened in 2016 but that was prime Brexit and Trump 1.0 territory which finally convinced me I had to leave Twitter to retain any semblance of sanity.
Hardly surprising then that I didn't write anything that year.
With only four years to play with it's not such a shock that politics hasn't cropped up more. There's enough "debate" (if you want to be charitable) and partisanship online so I like to leave it to others.
I just hope that whatever the result in this year's US election, whenever it may be finally announced, that people can start to put their differences behind them, move on and heal the divisions that are causing so much pain.
Rao's post rang true to me: engineer my next process. It echoes my desire to do something a bit different with my writing, to work in a different way and see what comes of it. The garden may seem like an all consuming vanity project (it very likely is) undertaken in lieu of actual writing but it is also a means to an end, a creative endeavour in its own right. On this day last year Blogging for now was probably what kick-started my thoughts moving to a more ephemeral blog: writing for now, today, as though that's all that matters. In that context the garden seems a contradiction, maybe it is, but I am that contradiction - we all are. I reserve the right to change my mind, to disagree with past me just as future me will turn his nose up at the present. I need to look for different ways of working/doing/thinking, to not get trapped in habit. I need to find purpose and establish proper goals and, hopefully, having everything in one place will help.