I do not take credit for this – please see the link below for intellectual property details – but if ever Blogging could for many people be summed up so perfectly, it would go something like this:

Blogging:

“Never before have so many people with so little to say said so much to so few”

I have previously written on this platform why I write, and how difficult it can be to not receive ANY feedback, be it good or pejorative, for carefully and assiduously crafted posts.

Whilst it remains moot as to what constitutes an actual blog – the subject matter, length of post, academic reputation of the author, choice of publishing platform – it is indisputable that we all have our different reasons for writing, as is the frustration attached to diminishing returns from placing great emphasis, effort, and hope, in our work.

The world is littered with hundreds of millions, perhaps billions of those who inhabit the blogosphere. Perhaps someone can put me straight as to the most up to date numerical estimate. Courtesy of Social Media and the more basic ‘point and shoot’ writing platforms there is no shortage of ways that the voices, and opinions, of all and sundry can be projected and inflicted upon the world. In an era that tells us we are all important, must be heard, and whose sense of entitlement should be acknowledged, an apparently limitless size of the World Wide Web is clogged with personal angst, Narcissism, and a presumption by many that what they are espousing is important, and that those reading(assuming anyone is) are not only interested but have to know what Peter from Preston had for breakfast, or the trouble he had this morning with social distancing at his local Morrison’s supermarket.

Everyone has to endure being locked down/quarantined during the Covid-19 outbreak; it isn’t just you.

Abandoned blogs pockmark the internet landscape, many authored by those who suddenly presumed that anyone can become a writer but soon concluded that they couldn’t hack the need for discipline(writing regularly) nor had anything meaningful to share with the world, quite aside from the kind of grasp of the English language and writing etiquette that would make those at Grammarly blush.

There is nothing at all wrong with writing for pleasure, to keep an online journal to diarise thoughts, fears, and experiences to be viewed in real time and looked back upon but are you to assume that anyone else wants to read about your life, and about the problems we all face? It might be news to many but really, you aren’t that important to the wider world, certainly no more so than anyone else.

It is therefore true that we all have a voice, but without something unique and insightful to say, keeping all the things you think unsaid might help to lower so many people’s ego to a more acceptable level.

I have previously established why I write on this or similar platforms. Quite simply, a need to source fresh employment opportunities and to direct those viewing my CV as part of job applications via an attached link enables my writing to be a showcase of any ability and potential employability within my armoury. I am not chasing hits, clicks, nor seeking a certain amount of followers. Whether this site reflects the attention given to research, my attendant knowledge, and an ability to effectively communicate the written word, or that instead I am deluding myself, I at least have a raison d’etre for putting myself ‘out there’.

Perhaps my writing is being viewed by the few, if any, but a dedication to excellence squarely aimed at my overall purpose remains undimmed. Please do not though assume I believe my writing to be special, that it deserves greater credit, or more views than that of anyone else. Quite simply, it has motive and justification for its existence, whether or not that is eventually borne out.

Flickr demotivational poster: http://www.flickr.com/photos/dullhunk/4406032283

 

 

 

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