Lately, just as an exercise to prove I’m not self-obsessed, I’ve been trying to think of posts I could write that don’t start with ‘I’. I’m not very good at it.
Maybe all I’m good at is airing my dirty brain laundry.
I’ve also been thinking about ways I can introduce additional streams of income into my life, and one of them would be to try to make this blog something. To try to figure out what it is that makes some people like it, and do that more, and show it off, and find more people, and then…I don’t know, make some t-shirts? Solicit donations? Sell a fucking writing course? That last one is a funny joke for myself.
But it’s probably a good job this blog doesn’t have a large readership. Because I’m clearly using it as a form of therapy, and I quite like the feeling of speaking into the abyss. I know people see it, I enjoy getting the odd like, and I really appreciate it when people reach out directly to tell me that they’ve read it, and that it was an enriching, or entertaining experience for them. And I also quite like that that doesn’t happen all that much. I quite like that I don’t really get comments on my blog, and I wonder if I somehow repel them, because at one point, quite a long time ago, I started getting a few, and my entire being got all spiky and wanted them to stop intruding on my life. And I felt guilty about that for a while, because I felt obligated to want comments, because this is a blog, and that’s what blogs have. And then I reminded myself that this can be whatever the fuck I want it to be.
If I made it something, though – if a lot of people were to read it – it probably couldn’t be whatever the fuck I want it to be anymore. I wouldn’t just get the odd nice message, I’d get opinions and judgement and demands. And I’d get spiky, because I wouldn’t be able to ignore them.
All of this is assumption. I don’t really know what would happen. But I think about it. And that’s a problem I have. I think myself out of things before I’ve even given them a chance to exist. Before I even know if they’re viable. Because I’m scared they will be, and that will mean things have to change. And I’m scared I can’t handle it.
But maybe I need to start finding out. At long fucking last, maybe I need to try anyway. Maybe I need to risk success.