I just stumbled upon this post by Sadish of WPThemes.info – http://simpleinside.com/posts/2005/10/03/the-arrow-and-the-song/. In the post, Sadish references a poem while discussing his thoughts about blogging, lack of interest/response, etc.
THE ARROW AND THE SONG
Henry Wadsworth LongfellowI shot an arrow into the air,
It fell to earth, I knew not where;
For, so swiftly it flew, the sight
Could not follow it in its flight.I breathed a song into the air,
It fell to earth, I knew not where;
For who has sight so keen and strong,
That it can follow the flight of song?Long, long afterward, in an oak
I found the arrow, still unbroke;
And the song, from beginning to end,
I found again in the heart of a friend.
What a great take on so many things. As applied to blogs, for me blogging is more about my need to vocalize myself on occassion, and really to organize my thoughts more than anything else. I don’t monetize this blog – probably couldn’t really if I tried. I don’t blog for traffic or actively promote it much more than the very, very basics. In a very sellfish way, its not so much really about the reader for me – but rather its about pushing whatever thoughts I choose to push. Its about writing for the sake of writing – or in my case spewing unedited content while attempting to complete a post without once pausing my fingers on the keyboard. If the idea were highest quality, perhaps I’d change that. Its not.
In fitting with this poem though, I can say that some of the truly rewarding experiences are when you have someone tell you they’ve added your blog to their reading list, or that you’ve helped to address or explain an idea to them. That’s great stuff.
That all being said, I’ve long since closed my comments section – the one area that one occassion allows this great feedback. Why? Comment spam. Ironically, the most recent post from Patricia, Sadish’s partner at WPThemes.info is a post on comment spam.
Posting ones thoughts (leads to) Nice feedback (leads to) Popularity of post/site (leads to) Comment Spam from people trying to take advantage of your work (leads to) Jon saying screw them at the cost of everyone else. I don’t have the time to mess with it.
By the way – Sadish and Patricia – if either of you happen upon this post, my two cents is not to sell that domain name for anything less than $10,000 or so (US) as mentioned. That is a ready-made perfect domain for SEO, and it would be robery for someone to get it for less than that. High PR, lots of quality inbound links, already high rankings for terms that can have monetary benefits, etc. Its your work – so I won’t tell you to keep or sell – that’s your personal decision – but definitely don’t sell cheap. That’s too perfect a domain, that is too well established right now.