Now what?

Things have been a bit of a blur for me lately, and I feel a bit self-conscious about slacking off... especially here on Serendipity. As many long-time readers of this blog know (and I honestly don't expect that there are many of you left), not too long ago I posted every single day. That's why I have arrived at my thousandth entry after a mere three years. Alas, such productivity couldn't continue forever. Of course I've been posting poetry and the occasional local events update. But I wonder who I'm serving at this point, and I'm not certain the answer is not "nobody". I do know that I exhausted the essay format I was using for much of the past few years. Perhaps I'll be inspired to return to that someday. I can't make any promises.

I had grand plans of doings something special for this occasion. I thought maybe that I'd go out and celebrate or (god forbid) write something extraordinary. Obviously the plans have changed, and you are getting this instead. I'm taking stock here, folks. A lot has changed in my life over the last three months and I'm still rearranging things. Perhaps I simply haven't felt emboldened enough to lay it all out here on the net. But I'm trying not to beat myself up over all of that. I do feel I've earned a break.

There have been a lot of benefits to doing this project, but very few of them match my original expectations. I've written book reviews that have resulted in personal and direct contact with the authors of some of those books. I've also generated some fairly robust hatred, and if you sift through the comments here (or at least those of several months ago), you'll get an eyeful. I've even lost friends over what I've decided to publish on the net. On the other hand, there are a few things that I feel proud of. A highlight for me was being hyperlinked in a column by a Huffington Post author (after the Ashley Todd incident). That little boon resulted in a nice sustained hike in traffic, which I've since pissed away. Also, I'll take this moment to brag that I predicted Barack Obama's ascension to the presidency in August of 2006.

Ultimately the most rewarding thing about writing Serendipity has been the experience of discipline and focus resulting from the arbitrary commitment I impulsively made to post every day. Whether or not the decision was made to boost my own self-esteem is probably beside the point. I feel like I learned something from the process. I hope it has been periodically edifying to its small audience as well.

This post isn't necessarily a "goodbye", but I do view it as a kind of release. I'd say that there's been a bit of a low fizzle here recently, and I'm sick of feeling like I've let myself down. So this is official notice that I may discontinue this public exposure at any time. I haven't quit writing entirely. In fact, I've written nearly a hundred poems over the last nine weeks. I've just stopped making it all immediately available to an unspecified and indeterminate readership. Maybe I'll take the time to be more deliberate in what I share. Or alternatively, I may simply sustain my current habit of stumbling along haphazardly. Anyway, if you are still reading this, then you have my appreciation and gratitude. Stop by now and again and you may find yourself surprised. Who knows?

And Round and Round I go....

I have to step up and admit that I've lately become a bit of a slacker when it comes to the written word. In the first two years of keeping this blog, I think I missed posting on about six different days. That was in keeping with a structured goal I had in mind... I wanted to write 365 days straight. That was the sum total of my aims and ambitions with Serendipity. When I hit that standard, I felt like I had the momentum to keep it going, and I did so. It became a routine part of my daily life. There was something about the habit that grounded me to a certain way of living- call it the "examined life", if that's not too pretentious. It was a running commentary on my very existence.

Now I have accumulated something in the neighborhood of 930 posts. I'm pushing forward to a 'magical' four digit number as if it meant some kind of extraordinary achievement. But ultimately it's a completely arbitrary number. Let me just say that I have written a lot. If I had paper copies of all my entries, the sheer bulk of it would likely seem wondrous to me. And yet it's not so easy to figure out if the totality is in any way greater than the sum of the parts. It's never been particularly clear what value it all holds for either me or whatever readers have made a point of slogging through it. It has loomed over my life in some continually accruing mass. Perhaps it's become unwieldy.

If it sounds like I am mulling over the prospect of the end of Serendipity, then I guess my phrasing is doing its proper job. Nothing goes on forever. Before I even started this online stuff, I kept a written journal. Within it I kept a record of all the people I spent time with, and listed the activities that made up my day. I imagine that 90% of it would be interminably boring for a stranger to read. To be honest with you, I haven't reread much of it at all. Still I kept up that practice for years. Eventually I got to wondering about its purpose. It felt a bit like pissing in the wind. At the same time, its physical reality presented an artifact that could be picked up and read by anyone without the scruples to leave it alone.

I guess I started feeling like I wanted an audience. After I began the blog, I kept up with the journal-writing for awhile. But eventually the demands of both seemed overwhelming, and I stopped keeping a personalized account of my life. It was sad to let that go, but I was excited about the demands that writing for a public, anonymous audience entailed. I even had intentions of using this platform to publicize my artistic pursuits. Obviously the project morphed into something altogether different. Part of that had to do with the feeling that I had to protect myself by writing under a pseudonym. There are limits to this forum that sometime seem constraining.

I wanted to make every effort to avoid the kind of self-referential, introspective crap that you are reading right now. On the other hand, this is what I want to comment on. Part of me feels like I am increasingly at risk of repeating myself. The daily involvement with this blog has been an important part of the process for me. It has lent a structure and discipline to my writing that I wouldn't have acquired otherwise. Still, perhaps the process has outlived its utility. I'm really not sure yet. So why do I see a need to to incorporate these concerns into a post? One day (it could be soon, or years from now) Serendipity might just stop without warning. I hope when it does, it is with appropriate intention.

A Comment About "Going Dark".

One thing I have tried to avoid on Serendipity is self-referential navel-gazing. After all, that path leads to a morass of post-modern ennui and irony. Yet after a long absence that has been the longest in the entire history of this blog, I feel a bit of an obligation to comment on the break. For an extended time I have been jarred from my everyday routine. Please don't imagine that this was a result of some tragedy or anxious upheaval. Actually it's been a lot of fun. But about a week ago I decided that it was more important to limit my obligations and impositions, and simply concentrate on direct experience for a bit. It took a lot for me to break my everyday pattern of writing and posting.

I still believe in the "examined life". As each night and day passed, there were plenty of topics and subjects I could have written about. I felt like I was letting people down by not stopping to put my reflections into words, but the truth is that such a feeling would never have compelled me to break my silence. Ultimately I do all of this for myself. So I had to decide to make the conscious effort to let things go. I even stopped taking my daily walks Whenever I felt pulled by caprice to redirect my attentions, I did so. It was a bit surprising to discover how much I resisted doing it. My habits have become so interwoven into my life that I often had the sensation of becoming completely unmoored.

Somehow the structure of this project has been simultaneously empowering and constricting. On one hand, I believe the organization of my thoughts has made me much more effective in accomplishing my goals. Yet I know that I have chosen to limit my opportunities for "serendipity" by making myself sit in front of the computer and type these signifying symbols in a five-paragraph framework. When I'm scratching this shit out on my keyboard, I'm closing myself off to outside experience- however temporary my self-imposed removal from the present may be. There must be a limit to the benefits I get from the process. And unless I step away for a bit, I'll never see them clearly.

So in every way I can imagine, I was on vacation for awhile. I went more places and talked to more people than I would have thought possible had I made a point of adhering to my regular schedule. Meanwhile, I know for a fact that some regular readers of this blog wondered if I was alright. My answer is unequivocal- I was doing great. I grabbed at the chance to see my carefully constructed perspective unravel just a bit, and I'm happy with having made that decision. But at the same time I realized the great benefit of participating in this activity. No doubt there were worthwhile topics and questions I could have focused on that will be lost to the erosion of memory.

However, if I hadn't prioritized direct experience, I wouldn't have been exposed to a lot of these thoughts at all. The reality is that we spend a lot of time balancing our external lives with our internal perspectives. We often don't realize we're engaged in that eternal conundrum, so we do things that make no real sense at all... to anybody. I suppose that's the great meaning we can all find in the holidays. They break up our regular rhythms, and give us a different mirror to stare into. It's exceptionally easy to think that we are the sum of our parts, but I suspect that they don't really convey the totality of ourselves. I hope you had a similar chance to step outside yourself, and if you didn't... that you will soon.

A Note on the Perils of Blogging About Politics.

We are now more than a full week past Sarah Palin's convention speech, and the rhetoric is continuing to fly. One would think that the choice of a VP running mate would fade into the background, but it certainly hasn't in this case. Palin's supporters seem just as fanatical as they were last week, and her critics are as stridently determined to bring her down as they have been. Much has been made of the poll numbers being released from every source engaging in the practice of annoying people in their homes. I quit believing in these political surveys years ago. I have absolutely no faith that they reflect what people are truly thinking, nor do I believe that they are accurate predictors of future behavior. I learned of their essentially flawed nature in 2000.

So although conventional wisdom tends to suggest that "Palin-mania" will die off, it shows no signs of abating. Meanwhile people I've known for several years are starting to act in very odd ways. One person who I've known for awhile has resorted to personal attacks in the process of arguing with me. Apparently the outcome of this race means so much to him that he has decided to bring unrelated aspects of my life into the discussion. He knows I value the separation between my online presence and my actual life, and at first I thought that he didn't realize what he was doing. But even after I tried to address the issue privately, the attacks continued.

Why someone would jeopardize an otherwise amiable association with someone just to make a political point on a blog is beyond me. Especially considering that the poster-in-question valued his own privacy enough to insist on commenting anonymously. I have never considered revealing his true identity to other readers of the blog. I know that he'd rather not have his political ramblings interfere with his personal and professional life. In fact he has said as much in the past. That's why it's so surprising that he refuses to extend that same courtesy and respect toward me. I fully expect strangers to unload on this blog without concern for feelings or consequences. That's fair game. But to use insight gathered through "non-virtual" interactions in an online argument should be considered out-of-bounds.

Because of this occurrence, I have been compelled to switch to the "comment moderation" mode. I will now be reviewing all responses left on this blog. It's a real shame that it's come to this. I am adamantly against censorship, and would ordinarily never engage in deleting or refusing comments. As anyone who has read Serendipity for any length of time realizes, I tolerate and even seek out divergent opinions. I make every effort not to personalize my responses. And it's a very rare occasion when I ignore a comment. I enjoy getting in the muck now and again, and hashing things out. But I make consistent efforts to make sure my focus is on the issues, rather than the person.

I fear that the "politics of personal destruction" are creeping into our lives. I'm seeing less and less acceptance of disagreement when it comes to values and philosophy. Respect for others as participants in a "democracy" seems to be eroded continuously. It is still possible to share a goal without establishing agreement regarding process or justification; not everyone needs to be an idealogue. Perhaps we'll reach a point in our society when we can no longer debate the issues without personalizing them. I hope not, but during periods like this it's easy to imagine that time is nigh. There's a certain chilling effect when people insist on "exposing you" for the sins that they project, based on preconceptions of who "you are".

My Weekend Trip to the Conservative Blogosphere.

This has certainly been an interesting extended weekend. The McCain campaign's decision to roll out their pick for VP came at an intriguing time. Initially the GOP must have felt very self-satisfied about having eroded the "bump" that Obama received after last week's convention. But there were risks as well. People have had plenty of free time over the last few weeks to do their own independent research on Ms. Palin. As a result there is a landslide of information, rumor, innuendo, and disclosure about the current Governor of Alaska. Perhaps the Republican National Committee believed that it could firmly establish a public persona for the little-known politician. However that assumption appears a bit flawed only a few days after their "historic announcement".

I decided to participate in the drama of the event by engaging online communities that I'd ordinarily avoid. In the process I had countless exchanges with self-professed "conservatives" and Palin supporters. There is no denying that the Theo-con wing of the Right has been invigorated by the prospect of a "family values"-espousing politician as second-in-command of the nation. I learned very quickly that they take the defense of Sarah Palin personally. They relate to her story on such an intimate level that to impugn their hero is tantamount to assaulting them. With the knowledge that I was coming into their house uninvited (so-to-speak), I did everything I could to avoid invective, vitriol, and insult in my own responses.

Despite my best efforts I was met with a wave of animosity and a general refusal to engage in a reasoned adult discussion. If you are skeptical about this, simply follow this link for a sample of the experiences I had on just one forum. Here are (just a few of many) highlights for those who would rather not wade through the morass:


"Be careful out there, a snark will get you and crew your detestable body parts into metaphysical mince meat." (Ed. note: actually I found this one kind of witty)

"As Malcolm Reynolds might say, I would bet my rutting life that child has a better upbringing and home life than you did. And as you are evidently a sufferer of moral retardation, the cases seem muchlike. Perhaps Trim or Trig or Tick or Tuck or Tug or whatsisname won't grow up to be an Internet dirtbag like you."

"I call troll on Merge and will not engage him again. He is engaging in creeping Cyrus Pinkertonism. May whatever God or Demon he believes in have mercy on his soul."

"Merge - you stepped into a known big pile of moose shit and kept smearing it all over your body. Stop already."

"Now, please go away you irritating little man. You are not engaging in political discourse, you are engaging in the most boring form of dikhed verbosity."

"No questions here, it's just fun watching an elitist know-nothing try to defend the indefensible."

"merege: what part of "fuck you' do you not understand--no sanctimony here, just pure loathing."

"Your net value to the participants is either zero or negative. It is a nuisance value.
If I every take a blog seriously, I will ban or suspend right and left among those who bore me."

"Do you actually believe the shit you post?"


That's pretty impressive stuff from a group of folks that (presumably) identify with the "family values" plank of the Republicans. Of course there were also a smattering of folks that rose above the ordinary shit-flinging, and simply "agreed to disagree". There always are. And I have to be fair and point out that there are many so-called left-wing sites wherein conservative posters (even ones employing frank sincerity and rational argument) might be similarly attacked.

I want to make it clear that I wasn't hurt or personally offended by any of these comments (although I didn't especially enjoy being called a "baby-killer" on another site). I knew exactly what I was getting myself into when I initiated contact with this bunch. Remember that I listen to conservative talk radio on a daily basis. The nasty tone flows downhill certainly. The truth is that I benefited greatly from these interactions. I got to see some interesting viewpoints that I wouldn't have otherwise encountered. The anonymity of the net allows folks to get beyond the niceties that apply in face-to-face encounters. One gets to see within their minds in a way that is much less adulterated by ordinary social decorum. It's just a shame that so many of us have become inured from ever entertaining an opposing position.


Addendum: It appears that Ann Althouse has some difficulty fielding dissenting opinion over on her blog (either that or she didn't appreciate the flow of traffic away from her site). I posted a comment tonight, and within a couple minutes she had deleted it. I understand that the shepherd has to protect her flock, but she appears to have an awful low regard for her regular posters' collective ability to defend their views. I guess eternal vigilance is required for her to stay on message. Maybe we should give her a break, and not rile her up too much- Hitler was a failed artist too.

Addendum #2: (9/2/08) Either someone from Althouse must have read this post and alerted Ann. Either that or she's read the e-mail I sent her. Now she's reinstated my comment and dropped it straight into another unrelated thread without any context. Very interesting... see it here.

Technical Difficulties.

Last night I had a bit of a surprise when I checked my e-mail. There was a message from the folks at Blogger.com with a prominent header- it cited my URL and warned that there was "ACTION REQUIRED". When I opened it I was informed that Serendipity had been tagged as a "potential spam blog". I was instructed to respond by requesting a review, and cautioned that if I didn't do so my blog would be deleted in twenty days. Obviously this got my attention. After more than two years of continuous blogging, I would be devastated to learn that it was gone forever. My father has started cataloging my posts on paper, but he is still at the beginning stage of the process. I couldn't ask him to finish the job in the next two and a half weeks.

A lot of scenarios ran through my mind. When I first opened the e-mail, it occurred to me that it might be some type of Internet scam. You have to be on guard whenever a message tells you that there is "ACTION REQUIRED". Maybe there is some sort of problem with your credit card, and they need your social security number and bank account information. Perhaps they forgot what your password is and need a simple refresher. Variations on this theme are virtually endless. I was told that I could get the necessary review by "filling out a form" at a prescribed link. I was leery about even clicking on it. What if I got some kind of virus? Truly my "Spidey-sense" was tingling.

It didn't take me long to realize that this problem was on the level. For one thing, it was a page from the official Blogger site. I have to give these guys credit for breaking down everything into easily digested particles. Quickly I was brought up to speed regarding Blogger's commitment to eliminate spam. Apparently they search for this annoyingly intrusive data distribution technique with something called an "automated classifier". In their own words, "Automatic spam detection is inherently fuzzy." The assumption is that if their "ACTION REQUIRED" message is responded to, then they have likely made a "false positive". They were quick to point out that they "sincerely apologize for this error".

My first thoughts were that this would be a tremendous inconvenience (if not a tragedy should they decide to erase my blog). If you are a regular reader, you are no doubt aware that I attempt to post every single day, and that I rarely miss a post. I was preparing to skip (at least) the entire weekend, because they said that it would take two business days to conduct their review. I vainly wondered how that would decrease my traffic. Yet I must admit that at some level I felt like it would be a reprieve from having to get something written for this weekend. It turned out (obviously) that this wouldn't be an issue. My blog privileges were restored approximately 14 hours after my request for a review.

I also have to admit that I suspected personal sabotage. For a moment I thought that someone had attempted to do me in. I guess that sort of paranoia is just typical of the age we live in. When I noticed that I couldn't post to the Digging Pitt blog, I suspected a coordinated effort to undermine the local arts scene. But with the assistance of an e-mail from Susan over at oranje, I determined that a lot of blogs were affected at the same time by Blogger's overzealous robots. Anyway, Sus told me that the online community is furious about it, and considering jumping ship. I still don't understand exactly why it happened to me (perhaps it's because my recent posts contain a lot of links to other sites), but I've invested too much to change to a different service. So Blogger-dudes, I hope you know that you're stuck with me.

More Self-Referential Blogging Bullshit.

When I first started this blog over two years ago, I resolved to avoid becoming self-referential. There's something about a writer that takes as his/her subject "writing" that suggests an overwhelming self-absorption. How many authors have you read who have written novels about their lives as college professors? There are certainly a lot of them in your local library. While it may be justified as authentic, since the academic life is a home for many scribes, this type of theme has the tendency to become fairly mundane. Granted there are certain folks who have completed memorable fictional accounts of this milieu (a notable example is Richard Russo's Straight Man), and others have built successful careers on it (see David Lodge).

Obviously blogging itself has a narrower tradition, simply because people have only been doing it for about fifteen years. Yet as of December of 2007, the blog search engine Technorati was tracking more than 112 million blogs (a fact which frankly makes me feel a bit better about my ranking on that site). A common complaint I have run into while talking to people about blogs is the perception that the vast majority of them simply constitute opportunities for self-absorption and navel-gazing for the bloggers themselves. That's unfortunate because the range and variety of subject matter to be found within the blog spectrum is enormous. Still I don't want to perpetuate that impression, so I'll try to keep my own inclinations contained.

But the reality is that I've been doing a lot of thinking lately about this phenomenon, and what it means in my personal life. I made that clear with yesterday's post, yet I think I have more to communicate on this subject. Blogging has become a daily activity as much as an abstracted pursuit. It has changed the way people interact with me. For one thing, it provides fodder for conversation for those who read Serendipity regularly. I find that it often cuts through a lot of the small talk that I would normally encounter with these readers. They don't have to ask general questions, such as "So what have you been up to lately?" I've had quite a few discussions that start with a pinpoint observation about something I've written about recently.

It's also interesting how things happen on the periphery... things I'm not even aware of. I often proceed with the assumption that no one I am writing about will read my blog. This has turned out to be naïve. Not long ago I mentioned the title of a local art show, and later discovered that the artist who came up with it read my opinion and took mild offense. Even though I stuck behind my convictions on the matter I couldn't help feeling a bit bad about being critical. I was taken aback by the experience because of my veneer of anonymity, and the realization of just how thin it actually is (especially on a local level). It makes it tough to avoid being a simple cheerleader for the local scene. I don't enjoy hurting people's feelings.

On the other hand, I have been pleasantly surprised by comments and e-mails from those I don't know who have stumbled upon my site. Just this past week I received a gracious note from an author who had read my review about his nationally distributed book. It made me wonder how many other individuals I have mentioned have found my blog via internet searches. At one point last year I was getting regular correspondence of a vaguely threatening nature from the lawyer of someone I had vilified in a post. They weren't talking about legal action, but rather invoking spiritual and more immediate worldly damnation. Believe me that makes continuing this project extremely interesting.

On Keeping a Blog: Unintended Audience.

Although I didn't have any specific goals in terms of readership when I started writing Serendipity, it would be disingenuous to claim that I haven't give much thought to numbers. When I set up the blog, Susan Constance was kind enough to give me pointers and introduce me to a site called StatCounter. She reasonably suggested that I would eventually be curious as to who was tuning in. Of course she was right. I do indeed have the kind of competitive nature that makes me want to put a score to every endeavor I participate in. Actually typing this admission gives me pause and makes me mildly depressed. After more than two years of virtually daily writing, my audience remains discouragingly small compared to my original expectations.

It's all really a matter of perception. The fact that I can pretty much count on at least fifty unique visitors daily is impressive when I think about it in terms of pre-Internet assumptions. When I was in my early twenties and started writing poetry, I was lucky to convince five or ten folks to either read or hear my work. In retrospect I suppose there was a sort of mercy in this fact, since the stuff wasn't especially good and the relative ignorance of what I was doing couldn't shame me. I surely would have been shocked if someone then would have told me that I'd actually have strangers intentionally reading my future thoughts. In a way I guess it's sort of surreal.

Before the age of blogs, there were only very limited ways to put yourself out there into the world. You could write a letter to the editor. You could start a "zine", make lots of photo copies at retail cost, and pass it out by hand. There was no way to access a potentially unlimited and anonymous readership. Now all of that is changed, and there is a viral tool at my disposal. There's a real sense of possibility, and a feeling that anything can happen. In reality the chances that you will be "discovered" by legions of unknown viewers is increasingly slim in the modern saturated media environment. Yet that dream exists as something with a corollary in reality. People actually have become famous doing this.

I do know what limits I labor under. There is no specific reason for anybody to regularly visit my blog. I fill no specific niche. There is no special demographic that would be interested in what I have to say, other than those who wonder what I am currently thinking about. Do you like to read reviews about films or books, or enjoy poorly informed political rants? Well... then you might enjoy yourself here. Do you occasionally get a hankering to visit some obscure and strange tourist destination? I've got a few ideas on that as well. But if you are searching for specific information that can help you live a better life, then you'd do better to seek out Cursor or Martha Stewart Living (sorry, you can find that one yourself).

You may wonder why I decided to address this topic today. Well, the other day another site linked to an old post I did about John D, Rockefeller, Standard Oil and alcohol-based fuels. I am no expert on this topic- but I had heard a strange story in an unlikely place, did some online research, and put together some basic thoughts. Lo and behold someone did indeed find my blog, albeit a year after I posted this particular entry. They linked to it and all of a sudden my site came up temporarily as the third option on a Google Search for "alcohol-based fuels". I don't know how that works... I guess it is "magic". But I tripled my numbers the next day. It's just a passing boost but I find it fascinating. Who knows what surprises the future holds in store?

Why Do I Blog?

I have a friend who I can count on for his ability to argue with just about any point I make. It's not so much that we disagree about most things, but rather that we both enjoy the back-and-forth of a spirited debate. For me these discussions serve the purpose of helping me hone and articulate my beliefs and ideas. Usually the stakes are relatively low, and each conversation is put aside in turn to make room for the next one. But the other night we got on the subject of this blog, and he explained that he rapidly skims through the first few sentences of each post, and moves on quickly if it doesn't interest him. Generally I expect that most people do the same, and that it is a rare occasion when someone takes the time to read it carefully and consistently. Because I have this expectation, I don't spend much time worrying about what other people think of what I write.

Yet when confronted with the opportunity to get specific face-to-face feedback about someone's perceptions of my writings, I seized the chance. My friend has recently completed a degree in journalism, and so considers himself a bit of an authority on the topic. He had apparently given some thought to the matter and had some suggestions for me. His main offering was that I should use shorter paragraphs. His view is that the format I use can be excessively dense, and that my posts would be better served if I broke them up into smaller blurbs. He advised that I should read for style, and even employ word counts to determine what is most effective in conveying a series of points. In his opinion, the reader should be compelled to keep reading even if he/she has an initial lack of interest in the specific content of a piece.

While I appreciated his insights, I'm not certain what weight to apply to his advice. I don't consider myself a journalist, nor do I view blogs as inherently journalistic in their purposes. But if I don't think of these writings in those terms- then what are they? What's my point? Should I adapt the conventionally taught format and style of mainstream American journalism?

In the time that I have been keeping this blog, I've tried to veer away from being too self-referential. Yet I see the validity in addressing these concerns. Why and for whom do I write a daily blog? First and foremost I write for myself. I don't get paid to blog, so I'm not overly concerned with critical reaction or the size of my readership. Each and every day I decide to write on a topic that strikes me as particularly compelling. I write about what I am interested in, and I value my freedom more than thematic consistency. I believe that it's a beneficial exercise- somewhat like thinking aloud, but with a bit more structure. Obviously I intend to make it available to a generalized, anonymous audience. That's a key point of the entire blogging concept. But most critically, it's for me to be engaged in writing and organized thought everyday.

For some reason I am intuitively drawn to an essay structure. That's probably because I have spent so much time in academia, in one capacity or another. I am not personally compelled to choose reading material that is broken into many small paragraphs. I guess I prefer the density and involvement of having to commit to a piece of writing. It feels like a more substantive journey. Maybe it's the sign of an elitist mentality, but I'm not interested in pandering to the convention of keeping things short and directly-to-the-point. Perhaps that explains why I prefer William Faulkner over Ernest Hemingway. If I want to engage in minimalism, then I'll write poetry. However... having noted all of this, I don't want to react with an outright rejection of my friend's input. It might benefit me if I explored less rigid compositions on this blog. Some people might enjoy the consistency of my style, and others may find it monotonous.

I am aware that I am alone in being interested in 100% of the content of Serendipity. I am filling no specific niche in the mediasphere. Certainly time in our contemporary age is at a premium. If you take the time to read my blog regularly (or at all), then I appreciate it. If you respond with a comment online (or in person) I benefit even more from the feedback. There is a lot that I could do to make this an appealing destination to a set segment of society. I could identify a specific demographic, and tailor my style to it. I could even strive to build a wider audience, although I'm not sure that would improve my overall experience. Somehow I am not sure that I am providing any definable service to anyone. Still I perceive value in what I am doing. If others do as well, then I am grateful. But that's not why I continue to write.

So it seems...

Sometimes (on rare occasions) I realize that posting every day is not necessary.

A Landmark Occasion: 365 Posts.

I started this blog on a lark. All I wanted to do initially was to leave a comment on a friend's blog, and I found myself signing up for an account with Blogger.com to do so. Assured by the online prompts that informed me that creating a blog was "Easy!", I went ahead and initiated Serendipity. In the beginning I thought I'd keep a photo blog, offering a daily image with accompanying commentary. What I didn't count on was the amount of time it actually took to upload a digital file with a dial-up internet connection. Instead I ended up making regular "text-only" updates daily.

Right off the bat I found it easy to find something to write about every day. Along with drawing and photography, writing is something that I enjoy. The regular routine of posting to the blog was easy to subsume into my lifestyle. The discipline required to do so added an extra element of order to my existence. The freedom I allowed myself in picking the topics for each post was invigorating. It's become my way of living in a more meaningful way. It's also provided an intentionality to the choices I make. Many of the decisions I've made over the last year were affected by this project.

After a month or so, I decided that I wanted to write a post every day for a year. This was a tangible goal, and kept me motivated to create entries even when I thought I'd have nothing to say worth reading. Perhaps that has been the case on many days. But the entirety of the experience has definitely been more than the sum of its parts. There were a few days last summer when I was traveling that I failed to find access to a computer. Those were the only days I missed. However I started Serendipity last June, and I've reached the magic number of 365 posts today.

It's difficult now to remember what rewards I expected from this project. I was pretty naive about how many people would be reading this blog. For long stretches I felt the visitor tallies were actually steadily decreasing, and that was a bit discouraging. But now I'm satisfied with the small readership I have been able to build. Anywhere from 40-60 unique computers access Serendipity daily. For a site that is as thematically scattered as this one is, I feel good about those totals. I use a very rudimentary tracking service to monitor traffic. One of its advantages is that I can tell what type of keywords (in the various search engines) lead people to my site. I've written a lot about obscure media and little-known characters... it feels good to know that seekers can find information about these oddities through Serendipity.

Overall the rewards I've experienced have been intangible. I haven't been "discovered" by any influential people. I've certainly not gotten any monetary compensation for my work. But I have put my thoughts in order, and communicated on a deeper level with a group of folks that I wouldn't likely have interacted with in any other case. Similarly, some of my friends and family now have a better idea about my day-to-day thoughts and beliefs. There's no way to put a concrete value on those consequences.

One of the things I have tried hard not to do is to allow this blog to become too self-referential. I wasn't interested in revealing much about my experience of keeping this blog going. It's for that reason that I won't drone on and on now that I've reached my goal. However, I did feel it was appropriate for me to note the achievement of a landmark that has sustained me in my efforts for several months now. It's satisfying to know that I have followed through.

As far as the future of Serendipity is concerned, I honestly don't have a clue. For the meantime, I think I'll probably continue posting at the same pace just out of a sense of simple inertia. I may not feel as guilty about the prospect of skipping a day. I don't know. But I'd like to thank each and every one of you that have read this site, even if you've never posted a comment. You have added to my own enjoyment of writing by providing an audience. It feels good to know that I haven't been screaming into a great void.