My Digital Life

I started blogging in 2004. In internet years, that dates back to prehistory. When I started blogging I wanted it to be easy to find me. My blog was eponymous. I blogged about whatever was on my mind. Things that happened to me, movies I saw, news, politics. It was fun to blog.

Then I got a job in a traditionally conservative field in a traditionally conservative state and I came to realize that I couldn't say what I wanted anymore. It was just too risky. For all my ideological views that I wouldn't want to work for someone who would fire me for being an atheist, or a socialist, or whatever else objectionable I am, the fact is that I needed that job more than I needed to stick it to them.

Enthusiasm waned. Eventually, I started a new blog with a new name, so that I could feel free to say whatever I wanted. Two things killed that blog. First, I found that anonymity is hard. It didn't take terribly long before googling my real name brought up my allegedly anonymous blog. Second, I didn't feel free to write whatever I wanted about certain topics, I felt compelled to write about certain topics. I felt like having a blog with a political reference as the title meant I had to be a political blogger.

This is my third blog. When I set it up a few months ago, I imported all the old entries from my old blogs, and posting has been sporadic at best since then. It's the same old story. I felt like since I was anonymous it wasn't personal, but I didn't feel like I had anything fresh, or even clever, to say about the subjects I'm interested in talking about.

Well, fuck it.

It's a new year, and I've decided that anonymity makes this blog more personal. I'm as free as I've ever been to write about whatever I want. My Twitter and Facebook are all locked to maximum privacy, so even if I link to posts here it stays there. If you google me this blog doesn't come up. If you know me personally you can read this and get a look at what I'm thinking. If you're an employer, there's no way to connect it to my name. I am going to use this blog, damn it, and often. I have thoughts, opinions, things to say, and if you've read six paragraphs of me bitching you might be interested enough to read them, too.

My problem before was that I not only wrote like I had an audience, I wrote like I had to entertain that audience. I'd love an audience, but I want them to be reading what I write because they want to read it, not because I tailored it to get them. Not that I lied or anything; it's more that I didn't say things I was thinking because I didn't want to alienate readers, or because I felt like I was just repeating what they could read, better said, elsewhere.

So my 2010 resolution to you, whoever you are, why ever you are reading this, is that you will actually have something to read here again. Resubscribe to my RSS feed. Comment on what I have to say, and often. I'm back.

Until I get bored.