I like writing this blog; it enables me to work out a few ideas, when I've the time. It's also great when people leave a comment. In the past, some comments have been thoughtful and have carried discussion forward, made me think, been helpful; others were briefer but encouraging.
It's gone very, very quiet lately. I feel as though I've been shouting down a well.
Now, don't get your hankies out, but I felt pretty discouraged earlier this morning. I looked at the little stats counter thing you can append to your blog for free.
Over the last week, I had 151 visits. Four visits were for over an hour; two were for between five and 20 minutes, and seven were for between 30 seconds and 20 minutes. (None, as it happens, for visits of between 20 minutes and one hour.) Thirteen substantial visits. The rest stayed long enough to realise they were not interested, and moved swiftly on.
"Sod it," I thought, "I'll pack it in. Blogland takes up quite a lot of my time, and what I'm saying clearly isn't interesting people any more. No-one even bothers to drop by and say hello anymore, even my so-called colleagues, even.... (sob sob)"
Then I remembered an anecdote from Louis Armstrong. One night he and his band were due to play a gig in front of a tiny audience; one of the band was grousing that it was hardly worth it. Satch told him that even if there was one person in the audience, that one person might have driven for four hours to hear them, and their job was to get out there and play for him.
OK, that's a pretty ambitious analogy (Armstrong: magnificent trumpet player who changed the nature of jazz. Self: er, well....)
Still, it made me think: stop grumbling, calm your ego, greedy as it is for attention, and instead, say this:
Four of you out there spent over an hour reading stuff I'd written?
Thank you so much. I'm delighted you found something of interest. I hope the mindfulness stuff helps.
And - thanks, Satch.
