Writing about issues that are likely to be controversial is really an exercise in vulnerability.
Nothing exposes one’s ego to potential attack more than occasionally pointing out that a sacred cow is actually covered in dung.
I’ve done this long enough to get used to it.
In the early days of the blog, it sometimes got to me. I could be unusually stroppy about something.
But I’ve just let it slide in recent years.
I think it’s because I have come up against one particularly nasty– and unusually powerful– rival, who happened to be writing about many of the same issues I was discussing here.
I’ve seen this rival largely self-destruct, mainly because he hitched himself to tired old theories and the ephemera of celebrity worship.
I just stuck to my guns.
I thought for a long time that I would lose all my readership.
But I knew that I was right.
And my stuff gets posted around social media. People read what I write, and that readership has grown,
I initially set up a Facebook Group for the blog largely for promotional purposes, but now it’s a pretty vibrant little Facebook community.
I am more confident with my voice than I was five years ago.
But with this voice I realize I have power.
I have power to inform and enlighten, but I also have the power to misinform.
I try not to do that.
But I am human. I make errors.
I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about what I’ve done thus far, and now I know there are big steps that lie ahead for me.
You’ll note that the blogging is significantly lighter now than it was 8 months ago.
Part of the reason is that I’ve been stepping back, reconsidering, reconnoitering, planning my next move.
There are changes ahead.
We’re moving on, but I’m still going to be here.
But the next venture looms in the very near horizon.
I am ready for it.
You Go Scotty
Life gets boring if there’s no controversy! As for mistakes….long ago, I had a choir instructor who repeatedly said, “If you’re going to make a mistake, make it loud….and during rehearsal.” Blogs are a sort of rehearsal. Putting thoughts out there and letting them get shot at is a way to test their validity–and their Scoville scale rating. The trick is not taking it personally when you provoke more and stronger reaction than expected.
Here’s hoping that the rehearsal/blog leads to something less ephermal.
LOL! The adage “older but wiser” comes to mind.
Having had to engage in almost daily technical writing as part of a 40-year career, I had my authorial rough edges regularly removed by editorial staff and supervisors–over, and over and over again. It was a salutary and educational (if humbling) experience. But I, my thinking/analytical process and my writing are the better for it.
The big difference w/ writing on the Web is that in addition to correction by those w/ genuine insight and input to the subject at hand, you get comments from people you don’t know who take hurtful, personally derogatory, and utterly gratuitous pot-shots at you w/o any real risk of reprisal. Then there are those whose comments emanate from the cryptic and unreachable depths of their own imaginary crystal castles w/o reference to any known empirical strictures. Still others, due to the nature of this medium, misinterpret what you have written. So it takes a pretty damn courageous person to do it as regularly and for as long as you have done.
Kudos! Bravo! ‘Live long and prosper!’
So what new venture are you planning?
What is your Facebook name, so I can visit it? Also, being a scholar ALWAYS brings about naysayers, no matter what discipline you’re writing in. You just get used to it & focus on the people who like your stuff. Occasionally, of course, someone does point out a real flaw in your work, but that helps you grow.