This Blog Sucks

I’ve spent a lot of time talking about myself.

That’s how blogs work, after all. You talk about your perspectives and life experiences and try to get the reader to relate, learn, or understand. And I think to some degree I’ve accomplished some of those. I’ve turned myself inside out here, and it feels great. I’ve gotten messages, likes, and recommends from a lot of you. Some criticism here, some kudos there, and a whole lot of good conversation. It’s a blast — honesty really is its own reward. And honestly, I’m getting restless.

A few months back, I was playing a drinking game that my friends and I call ‘Pangea’ (aka ‘Pizza Box’ or ‘The Cardboard Game’), which entirely consists of rule-making. It’s so fun it makes King’s Cup look like shit. My favorite go-to rule that I always make first is “EAT PAPER” where you have to rip off a quarter-sized piece of paper and swallow it. Chewing is optional. You really should just fold it up real tiny and swallow it. But anyway, Jake made a rule called “Sincere Criticism”, and whoever landed in that drawn territory would have to give a sincere criticism to anyone playing. So Dom flips the quarter, it lands in that rule, and he stumbles a bit over his words to find the best way to phrase it. Finally he turns to me.

“Your blog sucks.”

Jake laughed pretty loud.

Shit. Dude...what the fuck? Wait. Seriously?

I was pretty taken aback. Especially since I’ve known Dom since 4th grade. He’s one of my best friends ever, so it held at least a little weight. I had only written a few posts when this happened, and in my head I was like “God dammit it already sucks?”

From the start, I wanted this blog to be something else. I wanted it to be different. I wanted you to feel like you were physically in the room with me when I wrote it. I wanted you to feel like you were telepathically conversing with me. But as much as I’ve tried, I still feel unsatisfied. Because the nature of a blog doesn’t allow for back and forth. I decide what to write about, how much to reveal about myself, which parts are fun and light, and which parts are dark and heavy.

At the end of the day I’m talking at you, not with you.

If I’m arguing a point, then it necessarily has to be that way. But I don’t want it to always be like that. It’s no fun if these posts are too preachy. When you’re in here, you’re supposed to feel like you’re in my room, chilling and shootin’ the shit, not getting lectured on why I think I’m right about something.

I’ve touched on a lot of different topics, and I don’t think I’ll ever run out of things to say, but this room needs more variety. Way back at the start, when I wrote The Room, I said how I get to decorate the walls, control the lighting, and cultivate the energy in here. But take the beer wall for example. A lot of the joy I get from looking at it is seeing my friends and remembering the fun we had together. In the same way, I want you to decorate these walls with me.

So I came up with an idea.

For every other blog post, I’ll write about a topic of your choosing. It can be about anything, no matter how obscure. It can be an in-depth analysis of particular memes. Or about the pros and cons of brussel sprouts. It can be about something controversial, and you can choose the stance I argue, regardless of my personal opinion on it. If it’s about a topic I don’t know much about, I’ll do a little research on it — enough to write a post at least.

I’ll post statuses on Facebook asking for topics. As to which topic I’ll pick, I’ll try to be creative. And for those of you random Medium users who I don’t know but are starting to follow me here, like, who are you? How did you even find this? Haha anyway, welcome. If you’re down, I’m down. So leave a reply to my posts if you want me to talk about something.

Remember, you decide how interesting this is going to be.

You decide whether or not I will regret this.

Let’s have some fun.