Rolling with Opposing Forces

I’ve been writing this blog for about two months now. I started at the beginning of the year while on an unexpectedly extended vacation, in a very different state of mind than where I am now, after two months back in the daily routine of work and being at home. Thinking back to where I was then and where I am now, two things come to mind. The first is that the free flow of ideas I had after being on vacation for a couple of weeks in an beach island environment has slowed down considerably over the past two months. While the free flow of ideas has slowed and been reduced as a consequence, the temptation to drop a logical structure over the writing and blog as a whole has increased. So these two forces are combining to oppose the original premise of the blog which was and still is to just roll with it.

Rather than sitting down and immediately writing when I’ve set some time aside for the blog, I’m increasingly giving in to the temptation to check the blog stats to see how many people are reading it, as well as Facebook and Twitter for comments and new followers. While part of me seems to really want this blog to make a connection with an audience, hoping that others out there can relate to the themes that are emerging, I do have to remind myself that one of my primary goals is to have a forum where I don’t have to get everything just right. The difficulty for me here is that when I start to think about “building traffic” for the blog, I have less fun with it. As I just wrote that, I realize that having fun with this may be the most important piece of the puzzle for me.

I think it would be more fun if more people were reading, commenting and interacting with me through this communication medium. However, I also think I just came to the realization that just rolling with it and sticking to my original strategy is what I’m going to do, rather than start to implement a traffic building plan. My hope is that, over time, the audience builds organically and that I’m able to connect with people who are able to relate to not just what I write about, however also to the importance of having an outlet to creatively express thoughts that come to me, as they come to me.

So maybe building an audience and just rolling with it aren’t opposing forces after all. Although, on the other hand, it could just be wishful thinking that people will slowly discover this blog, through word of mouth and social media. I guess only time will tell. For now, just writing down these thoughts has already helped me feel more free in my thinking and more optimistic about the purpose of this writing, than I did when I first sat down to write the post this morning. And that alone reminds me that I’m not wasting my time doing this and that I’m thankful to have discovered a small but loyal readership in the first two months of writing. Thanks to anyone who’s read even a part of one post and I hope that you find my writing worth coming back to from time to time!