Messaging and the purpose of blogs
I recently posted two videos, one showing the movement that led to the disqualification of a high-school distance runner from the Wisconsin State Championships 1,600 meters that I believe was unwarranted and the other displaying the athlete's mortified but understandable reaction to this iffy DQ. I was defending this kid, or at least saying she shouldn't be DQ'd and the fact that such things happen underscores why this sport is, in the grand scheme, hard to take seriously. A guy who sometimes links to me linked to the post, asking his readers to chime in. One of them admitted that he had no opinion about either the DQ or the sharing of the video, but was disturbed that I seemed, as usual, on the verge of "going postal."
I've seen such reactions from people before, and my response is not to become upset or scornful, but to look at the situation the way a writer should. In this case, I have wonder why most people manage to see humor for what it is even if many of them don't think it's funny, while others are moved to complain. (There is a nonzero chance that "Will" is someone I know, and is trolling me with this, but I would guess not.)
In a way, I see this aghast comment as an honest expression of "Will's" thoughts because he may have assumed I wouldn't see them (I have commented only once or twice on the blog that led him to me, and both times a while ago). But I will never stop laughing at people who serially seek out commentary from total strangers they claim is upsetting. If someone heaves something in your face and you don't like it, don't look at it again. If someone links to a site and you check it out and find it distasteful, don't go back. More generally, If you find yourself writing sentences that say, in so many words, "I keep inviting this one experience and that experience throws me off," then stop expecting yourself to learn to enjoy or at least tolerate whatever it is that chaps your ass.
Also, when did blog posts become "articles"? If I obscured my point -- which he nevertheless summarizes, by the way -- why did he read all the way to the finish? And if my "articles" disturb him, why does he keep reading them? More broadly, do people exist who read blogs strictly for their information content? When I started my first one, in 2004, it was a mishmash of semi-random thoughts, sometimes organized around a clear theme (e.g., a race report), sometimes not. It was intended mainly as entertainment for my friends. People seemed to "get" this back then, even when I had more readers, or at least a higher share of the sad segment of the population that reads running blogs; at the time, blogs were new and I was doing a lot more professional writing about "the sport."Now that most people get their news online and the lumbering fiend collectively called "social media" has stuck its bulging phallus down everyone's throat, many of them have different expectations about blogs. They want to see "the point" stripped of needless blather and surf on.
I think about these concepts often because I ponder what I would want my novels to look like. Assuming I could command an audience at all, I would want to strike a compromise between writing just the way I want to and writing the way I'd need to to motivate a broader audience to like, and therefore buy, the work. I would be willing to curtail my run-on sentences because sometimes I even confuse myself with those, but I would never change anything about my tone. I am not one bit concerned with what puritans and scatterbrains think. And the few Christians who can read novels don't read novels like the ones I want to write.
I know my writing can be offensive and the humor isn't for everyone, but anyone who takes all of the words here literally or seriously is probably not well adjusted to the ebb and flow of everyday life. In fact, I could, but will not, name a few examples of people who have misinterpreted some if the things I've written on this blog over the years in a way that has resulted in great and unnecessary anxiety for those people. When this running blogger links to one of my more florid rants, he even warns people that the content is not G-rated, yet some of them still complain after following the link anyway. I am bound to lose some people the way I write, especially here, and I don't mean lose followers, I mean lose their attention. I accept that this happens, but it's not like writing for a producer of educational materials or even for a running mag. That is, to me, the whole point of having a blog: No one but you exerts editorial control, for better or for worse. If someone thinks a person who's been writing the same basic ideas in the same general way for close to 20 years is on the verge of snapping because he cusses a lot, then that person is, for my purposes, a paranoiac whose judgment I am not interested in.
Some seem surprised that bloggers choose to treat personal blogs as personal projects not designed to please whatever random explorers find them. I do this more than ever now that "everyone" has an online presence; I like to vent and give my friends what they expect in so doing.That said, I find it instructive when total strangers offer feedback on my posts, in particular when the feedback is to someone else. I don't give a shit if people dislike my ideas themselves or believe they indicate a likelihood of acting out for real, but I am interested in the experience that my writing itself creates.
These thoughts are not borne of a defensive stance; I accept that people who don't know me create varied impressions of me based just on my blog writing. I might "see" the same psychotic and disenfranchised affect this observer does, but I'd more recognize it as florid by design, even if I thought the "shtick" was lame. But everyone's mind has a different threshold for distinguishing a earnest sermon from a basic rant, and while I can't worry about the 10-15% of people who annot help but conflate the two, I do concern myself with how the style affects the message, if any. Again, not with their impression of me -- as appealing as "disenfranchised" sounds, it's an over-the-top label for a variety of reasons -- but with whether I do in fact manage to toss the point off a cliff. This only matters because in other writing realms, failing to convey the point owing to gratuitous verbal fireworks is a major liability. But I seem adept at somehow reining in my discursive id in those settings, and I think the didactic nature of my "real" writing makes me more inclined than ever to be that much more jarring when I am venting.
As for the blog's tone, I like pondering the psychosocial mechanics of selecting for readers. Like I said, most of regular readers are people I often see or at least talk to. But any account will inevitably attract followers thanks to some simple rules. For example, Evangelical Christian frauds like Franklin Graham have many thousands of lying, angry, insane idiots following them, for reasons obvious to everyone besides these dingbats themselves. I will not describe the traits I think attract people to a blog like mine out of nowhere, but I will say that there are a lot of people out there who, for better or worse, see their own running and the running world overall in much the same way I do. Which should be sad. I think.
A part of me will always take perverse satisfaction in the idea other people imagine me sitting here polishing a gun, waiting for the right moment to put my homicidal plans for an intolerable, inadequate society into effect. Somewhat less urgently, there may indeed be people out there who think I am trying to get every track runner, coach and parent to quit what I have come to see as a flagging sport. There are times I do believe this, although it's not for the reasons I give or appear to give.
So it's probably time to ditch my social media accounts. Not just "take a break," but shitcan them and then display the resolve to leave them on the scrap heap. More than anything else, I am tired of the extent to which I have signaled my wants and desires to those who would peddle this information to others. Targeted advertising always feels like personal mockery, whether it's on target or not. Anyway, more on that soon, I guess. I am toying with the idea of keeping Instagram going even though it's a Facebook product; the notion of protecting my data or avoiding irritating ads became left the station years ago, but sometimes I like to reduce the sting.
I have now run for 231 straight days. I think this is probably a record, and nothing anyone should ever emulate. I'm also pondering the reality that I am not going to be making long road trips by car anymore. I hate driving, even if I often like being at destinations. I am not going to leave the area for more than a few days without taking Rosie, and I'm not going to put her on a plane. So I am kind of stuck here, which isn't a big deal considering I have no pressing reason to be anywhere else (one of the various benefits of quitting racing is not having to organize any of my life around specific travel dates).
My work load is going to be lighter than usual for a few weeks, which means I have time to engage a number of things I supposedly want to do but in reality I am not all the interested in pursuing because they will probably end in failure. Most things you do will also end in failure, either extreme levels of it or enough to cause you to re-think whether you want to even bother with forcing yourself to trudge through one more pointless day of whatever bullshit you engage in all day to keep the reality of life at a mostly comfortable distance.