Nature Of The Beast.

Birth. There is nothing so equally terrifying and empowering as giving birth to something. On the one hand you could be unleashing a monster upon the world. A snowballing behemoth that cannot be shackled or reigned in by your pleas and commands. And on the other hand you could be creating hope. That which you have spawned may offer enlightenment and information to the masses.

This blog feels somewhat out of my hands at times. It's points at me and says, "You there, write something." What started out as a place to put short, whimsical musings turned into an obligation, but like so many things we give birth to it's an obligation of love. I want to inform my readers of new and fantastic things. Whether this is legitimate facts, or just a different way of thinking I feel like I have this fantastic vehicle in which to do so. The one thing that differentiates this blog from an actual living and breathing creature is that at any moment I can choose to change its purpose. If I wanted to keep a record of all my recipes and cooking endeavors all I need to do is change the background and change the nature of the posts. If I wanted it to be my own little "120 Days of Sodom", I could do so. I imagine I'd alienate my readers and anyone that they mention my blog to, but that's the power I wield.

One of my readers has often complimented me on the nature of my posts. While flattered I don't know entirely how to take this news. It feels like in an attempt to stimulate conversation and discourse I have instead eked out a sort of bland fan base. Now this isn't to say I don't appreciate my readers and the compliments they bestow upon me, but fundamentally I'd rather have everyone argue with me and have an intellectual tête-à-tête than have people "like" what I'm writing. I know I'm smart, I've never really been in question of that fact. To receive recognition for the nature of my posts makes me feel like people didn't really know that I'm smart. That's kind of off-putting.

We do many things in life solely for the reason of recognition. This is how many of us measure self worth. I know that part of me wanted to write this blog with the intent of people reading it and going, "Oh John's quite clever." It's a good portion of why I do anything. However I also found that once I got the ball rolling I was posting more for me than for anyone else. I was writing what I wanted to, and as avid readers know I've had some rocky feedback as a result. I welcome that kind of feedback, I really do. In my post about The Matrix, Christian flat out disagreed with me. Great! I love my friends enough to know that if we don't see eye to eye on something it's not a deal breaker. I often purposefully stand opposed to their interests for no other reason that to stimulate a constructive conversation.

I think what I'm trying to say is it's difficult to have something as unwieldy as a blog and still use it to communicate a message. I'd be really interested for someone who doesn't know me to read the entire blog and compose a character profile of the writer. See how it is I'm coming across without the bias of already knowing me. When I reread my posts I try to do this, and I think I come off as a smart ass with women issues.

I humbly request that my readers blindly send this blog to their friends or family. Anyone they think wouldn't mind spending a bit of time to go through this all. Get their take on the whole thing and report back to me. While I am limited as to who I can get this blog out to, I figure I'll just abuse the "pay it forward" technique.

By this time next year it'd be fun to have Obama as one of my readers.