Can't See The Lint For the Fuzz

Recently, the Spovangelist came up with an idea to create a small publication, The Spokane Blog Bible, containing descriptions of local blogs. My "duh!" moment in this was asking why "Blog Bible"? Because the Spovangelist is an evangelist for Spokane. Duh! At first I declined to participate. After letting it stew for a bit, my curiosity got the better of me and in order to see what would happen I decided to join in and submitted an entry for Shallow Cogitations. Participating bloggers had to begin their entry with "Thou shalt..." As an aside I wonder how many used the imperatively denying "Thou shalt not..." (guilty) as opposed to the imperative "Thou shalt..."

The Spokane Blog Bible's release party is at 5:30-8:00 pm, Dec 6, at the Magic Lantern Theatre and everybody in the free world, along with those who can escape from the non-free parts, is invited. They're even showing the movie "Hackers" (PG-13). So come on out if you're interested in meeting some Spokane bloggers or, better yet, people with interests similar to your own.

It's neat that in the last 18 months I've made some new friends and met some really great people whom I probably never would've crossed paths with otherwise. It reminds me of the interconnectedness expressed in The Five People You Meet In Heaven but on a far more humbler scale.

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Now my participation in this got me wondering. Why do I write this blog? I'm not out to change the world. I don't fancy myself as being particularly erudite or clever and I'm not looking for people to say so one way or the other. I'm certainly not better than anybody else. I never advertised my blog but people have managed to find it. While I don't care if anyone reads it or comments on it, I admit I experience a small amount of excitement when a subject line in my email begins with "[Shallow Cogitations] New comment on..." I reckon the relative anonymity acts as a safe harbor. For me you could say it's almost a sort of opt-in performance art where certain distractors are missing.

I understand Google Analytics could give me all kinds of information about page hits, etc., but I'm really not interested. Once I noticed I had a "follower", the naming of which--and this is no reflection on the person who likes my blog enough to want to be notified of new postings--I found disturbing. I would prefer "reader". But that's just me.

After mulling it over for far too long, I think the heading in my profile section pretty much says it all: "Me! Me! It's all about me!" in that I write this for mostly selfish reasons. Hardly anything fails to catch my interest. I like to write and I want to improve my writing skills. I like to think about things and I work at being more balanced at it. I like humor and fun. I like to challenge the status quo. The arcane, the obscure, the enigmatic and the road less traveled are curious to me. I like to wonder why. I appreciate new perspectives.

But I also like to share. And while you are welcome to everything on this site, I trust it won't bother you to know that I didn't do it for you.

Okay, I'm done navel gazing.

And just look at the mess I made. Too much for the lint remover. Better get the broom and dustpan.