by Ethan Johnson
August 20, 2006

The Gospel of Dave Rogers:

Technology changes how we do things, not what we do.

I concur. The above photo, and this article, will serve as Exhibit A.

As shown above, I kept a series of journals from 1993-1996. Nobody told me to do this, I wasn't expecting anything positive to come of any of it, and I certainly didn't do it for future generations of historians or family members. In short, I write, and writing is my refuge (and recourse). The above photo stands as testimony to the fact that regardless of how I do it, I choose to (and often must) write, if only for my own amusement and/or benefit.

The advent of the internet, and by extension, online publishing (or blogging, though "publishing" came first) enabled me to write faster and for a wider audience. On the down side, there are times that what is written exists solely for my own benefit (or has meaning for a select few), but short of either writing offline or marking things as "private", my work is freely and publicly available, and will be viewed and judged through that lens.

Unfortunately, what serves as an outlet for me has indeed been inflated into a much larger practice, where popularity is fought for and ostensibly rewarded, and worse, often serves as an "end" as opposed to a "means". There is a quote that has been beaten into the ground: "Tell me how you're measuring me, and I'll tell you how I'll behave." Top N lists, high-profile conferences and other developments have distracted a great many people (myself included) from whatever purpose the internet/online publishing was meant to serve for each individual. In my case, I write because I simply must. I write to tell stories, I write to ruminate, I write to seek understanding, and I write to cleanse. I don't expect that everyone will be enthralled by my every utterance, nor should they be.

I recently received an email from someone who wanted my opinion about how to boost his readership. I asked the same one-word question that I always do whenever this topic arises: "Why?" I hit on a great analogy, I think: Trying to become popular and widely read without an express purpose or goal is like playing the lottery and having no idea what you'd do with the money. Of course, lots of people say that they'd prefer having the problem of "too much money" and relish the thought of being forced, forced to spend, save, or invest all of it. So too with online popularity. If this is your desire, then complete this sentence: Once I become popular, I will finally be able to ______.

Speaking only for myself, I have found myself at times battling the demon of "ego" and wishing for popularity and high inbound traffic numbers merely for their own sake. No, for validation. I wanted the thrill of knowing that someone found my works to be worthy of attention (ding ding ding), and therefore receive validation that something I wrote mattered.

Back in the pre-internet days when I wrote lengthy journal entries until I felt properly sated or my hand cramped, I did so with the faint hope that indeed, someday my writing would serve some historical context for...who? My children I didn't plan to have? (And didn't.) Future historians? As it happens, the future historian was - me. I looked back on what I wrote years later and observed the sheer anger, the frustration, the outrage, and the general despair that comes from being "stuck" and not knowing what changes to make, or how. These journals serve as a yardstick to measure how far I have come along (or not) since that time, and as a reminder that I do indeed have much to be thankful for.

In flipping through the now-unfamilar and alien pages of some of my journals, I recognize thoughts, behaviors, and attitudes that once defined me, and now disgust me when I encounter them in others. The natural knee-jerk reaction to these things is to wish the person away, or to dismiss him or her airily with a terse "shut up". I know that when I do these things, what I am really doing is denouncing these qualities in myself, be they present now or in the past.

In virtual space over the last week or so, the air has been thick with questions of worthiness, an open letter urging someone to "shut up", and explorations (or airy dismissals) of the question of who or what "matters".

"Shut up" is not a dialogue. "Go away" does not foster understanding, acceptance, or tolerance. "You don't matter" does not lead toward love, trust, or friendship.

Isaac Asimov called violence the "last refuge of the incompetent." One of my favorite High School teachers called profanity the "crutch of the conversational cripple." Substituting "shut up" for a dialogue is one of the few crude tools of the intellectually outclassed.

As for me, I don't write this or anything else in hopes of making headlines at TechMeme, TailRank, Digg, or any other "conversation" tracker. I don't do it for links or attention. I don't do it for money (yet), or for awards, or for invitations.

I write simply because I must. And I'm not shutting up. <EM>