There are things in life that start with a simple idea—often just an impulse—and then take on a life of their own.
My blogs are that to me.
I started them in the Fall 2009 while renting a small villa in Castelnuova Berardenga outside of Sienna.
Part transition into a new line of work. Part self discovery. Part a core belief that the best marketing channel for me was something that aggregated cross my passions and experience.
I hung a marketing and web blog next to a wine one off the same URL and just let it happen.
Led by the belief that the community would discover a unique value in experiencing the aggregate of the two core passions in my life.
On one side continually reinventing marketing as the web evolved the very behavior of the marketplace itself.
And for wine, chronicling how the web itself was enabling an artisanal market for a more natural approach that paralleled the rising of a global ethos of taste.
That these two would morph into a single brand and form a hybrid community of interests.
It worked.
But blogging was hard for me to find a comfortable pace.
I was subject to my own demons, like most of us.
Self consciousness of course that we all get over. But my obsessive drive for perfection was my nemesis.
I wrote scores of long, well researched and nuanced posts. Gained a fair bit of traction, gathered a strong community but they took way too long to write. Momentum eluded me.
Lapses of weeks happened.
I started a Tumblr blog and built a community on the short form because it was quick. I aggregated a large Facebook following across various communities because it was easy. But I simply couldn’t find a pace for this blog that felt right.
Yet little made me happier than publishing here. Few things let me focus like working on this blog.
The big aha for me a while back was that writing is not the same as blogging.
Writing is a craft and something I work at and aspire towards excellence.
Blogging is a state of mind. A poise to capture your thoughts within a frame of time.
The discipline to blog a number of times weekly, before first light, with samthecat on my lap, riffing on my thoughts is what blogging has become to me.
Three core realizations came together to make this happen.
First–the downside of a connected world is the debilitating distraction of the social nets.
Beyond the symptoms of wasted time, the nets create a culture of being a follower, not a creator. Even the content creators on these nets are more than anything else, writing to gain immediate reactions. Following in a closed loop of gestured responses.
Blogging in the long form is the antithesis of this.
It’s your own thoughts. Your own form.
It’s the mental training ground for making each day your own. Letting what wakes you up stylize how you approach what you do.
It’s a powerful way to cycle thoughts and discover your own point of view as it develops.
Second–blogging is not about writing.
It is about communicating a thought in an episodic format.
Discovering and delineating that thought so you can share it with your community. Getting input through comments that leads you somewhere else. Each post is a mini chapter not a book. An episode of sorts.
This liberated me and removed the distance between my thoughts and the words themselves. It lets me just jump in without hesitation.
And Third–perfection is largely aspirational and mostly counterproductive.
Perfection in expression does happen but it is not a framework for blogging I can demand of myself each and every time.
When it happens it is a wonder certainly. But often the imperfect posts, probing for an idea or more often with a bit of self confession in them are equally as important.
Learning to accept this, accept that less than perfect is more than acceptable was a bit of a revelation to me.
Feeling free to fire up my ancient La Pavoni expresso machine while the city sleeps. Blogging and publishing being both personally empowering and a necessary exercise in overcoming anxiety.
I care if my posts get read or drive comments certainly. I am a community builder by nature and love when engagement happens. But the act of expression needs to stand alone first.
I’m blogging consistently now and loving it. Comfortable with my web and marketing blog, still finding a new pace for my wine one.
Considering renaming, rebranding each of them. Nervous about this actually.
Considering letting buddies who are experts publish short posts that lead others to their writing. I like this a lot.
I’m harking back to my days as an English and philosophy major and channeling Marshall McLuhan in this instance.
Realizing that the more I embrace the medium of the long-form blog, the more it empowers me to make it my own. That the process in itself is valuable.
The more I let go and find the expression for the thought, the easier and more fluid the process becomes.
Writing this post has been a perfect start to this day.
Now I get to to push PUBLISH and move on.
Both anxious and excited and with a sense of time well spent.
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Writing this post at 4am this morning with Samthecat.
