Blog is Beautiful

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If there’s a workaholic there could be a blogaholic too. If a blogger feels let down just because he has had no post during the week/fortnight/month, if he has a nagging fear that the readers would desert his blog on a slight indication of slackness on his part, if he keeps warning himself that he should only write those stuffs that his readers like or that dovetail with those nebulous criteria of search engines, if he is bothered by the rise and fall of his stars that benchmarking portals award him, then I should say that he has turned a blogaholic. I’m sure he’ll soon realize the hollowness of his efforts and consequently his muse will desert him. Just by creating hoax in the internet or by plagiarizing nobody can satisfy himself, let alone others. I’ve seen some blogs which were going strong the other day complain of topiclessness and ramble something or the other to show that they’re still serious about their blog, have a commitment to their readers and somehow linger on. But some others abandon it right away, saying that they feel bad to stop blogging, that they have had so much to learn from their blog readers etc. etc. They attribute their decision to their preoccupation elsewhere and some even say that they are going only for a hiatus or a sabbatical as if they are sure they would come back very soon. But they don’t.

I wonder if it is the same thing as writer’s block. Or is it due to the fact that the blogger fails to achieve what has once attracted him towards it? Say, for instance, earn some ad income. I’ve seen quite a few visit my blog and offer to exchange links with them, but then there happens to be no affinity to encourage me to do that. There are a few others that leave inane comments which I do not approve and publish. I rather feel bad, saying to myself, “If there is a dearth of comments to trail my topic, so be it. Where is the big point in accumulating these unrelated or even laughably obvious comments?”

It’s not the method of link exchange only that bloggers are seen adopting to boost their statistics of visits to their portals, rather they join communities with a view to diverting members to their sites. Now social networking portals, appearing as new avatars of communities, offer them the platform. But while joining a social networking portal a blogger should know that there is hardly anything similar to blogging there. Social networking portals have only snippets of text that denies the scope of elaboration. They have only picture to speak a million words for them! Even micro blogging portals just chirps and tweets. There is a big race to marshal followers, to test the popularities and hence celebrities throng in there. There’s a rush for accumulating friends, say friend-whoring. No one wants to be left behind. But blogging is not that; it is about expressing and being understood. Here only those will survive that have something to say…and say it beautifully.

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By

A. N. Nanda

Coimbatore

12-08-2011

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