The Joys of Unrequited Blogging

I noticed today that sometime in the last 24 hours I have exceeded 5000 all-time page views.

I've been writing my little screeds--550 of them now--into this blog now for a little more than five years.  5000 page views is a microscopic number for that amount of time, especially when you consider that the vast majority of those are robots or weird search-throughs.  I know that there are a handful of you out there who are actual readers, and maybe one or two that are regular readers.  Thanks for bearing with me.  You must find some of this stuff interesting or you wouldn't bother.  It makes a huge difference to know that I'm not always shouting into the void.

But, to be honest, I'd keep writing this even if there was nobody receiving.  I've always liked keeping up with the news and having an opinion about it.  I've found that you don't really know what your opinion is until you write it down.  Writing it down in a form that's fit for consumption by another human being gives me a little responsibility to be semi-clear, semi-coherent, and semi-civil.  All of those are nice personal qualities, deserving of periodic maintenance.

If you scroll back through my history, you'll find that my posting levels wax and wane, depending on what shiny object has currently attracted my attention.  Presidential campaigns tend to make me cranky, and I'll increase my output.  The result of presidential campaigns tends to make me depressed and post-averse for a while.  We'll see if that pattern holds up.  I'm not sure what would happen if somebody that I actually liked won.  Maybe one day I'll find out.  Hey, it could happen.

I post a three of four comments a week on other blogs.  No doubt the few of you who read this came to me through one of those.  I'm sure that the comments get more readers than the blog.  Maybe some day that will change.  Maybe not.

Sometimes I wonder what it would be like to run a successful blog.  I'm not sure I'd enjoy it.  I certainly don't desire it enough to market the blog, fool with search rankings, or write the inflammatory posts that seem necessary for the amateurs to be successful.  But it might be interesting if it just happened, but that's about as aspirational as I'm going to get.

So I'll just keep plugging away, if you don't mind--or even if you do mind.

Again, thanks.