As I've written previously on several different posts, I've been deliberately limiting my time spent in the virtual world to focus more on the real world. Part of this decision is based on how time consuming it is for myself to compose a new blog post. Up until about two or three years ago, blogging came very easy to me. I saw, read or experienced something that struck my muse, I logged on and let the words flow from my fingertips. But things have definitely changed as I started to impose some rules for myself regarding this blog. These rules constrain the volume of my output, and they make each new post a lot more time consuming and painstaking to produce.
A lot of this time consuming effort is based on trying to avoid redundancy, and when you've been blogging as long as I have, my focus on trying to avoid rehashing old ideas already thoroughly expressed gets more and more difficult to adhere to. I'm aware that this kind of rule for myself puts my writing muse into a box that makes blogging much more difficult than it needs to be. Nevertheless, I don't forsee myself ever fully quitting this
Long time commenter and blogger of the MAndrosphere Xsplat (OG Roissy in DC) recently responded to a comment on a recent post of his that clarified this vague idea I've always had about why I don't forsee myself ever quitting this increasingly time consuming hobby:
Some writers feel compelled to write. I’ve known such personalities to occasionally declare that they are retiring from writing. When I hear that I call bullshit, because I can tell by their writing that writing is a compulsion for them also. I’ve been correct so far.
Writing is integral to my very being. It is how I think. As I’m walking around in the day, things that I see and do are held within the lens a discussion and potential blog post.
This is precisely how I think all the time now. In nearly everything I do, my mind is constantly seeing my experiences of life as blog fodder. I'm always thinking of how I would express or relate what I'm living in the moment as a theoretical blog post. This is both good and bad, I think.
Xsplat describes the good part here:
Without writing my thoughts would never get organized. Writing and clear thinking to me are inseparable. Can’t have one without the other.
And this is the key to why I write: clear thinking in and of itself is enjoyable to me. I get pleasure from organizing thoughts, and having creative insights. And that can’t be done in isolation; a guy needs dialogue to do that.
Exactly. While I am a rather voracious reader and have devoured books by the truckload that have played a definite role in my thinking process and present lifestyle, it is the writing and interacting with everyone else on teh Interwebz that has truly inspired the shape of my life and the way I live it today.
If I have a lot of insights, it’s because having insights is pleasurable to me. I do that as a habit because that’s what feeds my brain pleasure.
A lot of people simply are not built that way. They find thinking taxing, or boring, or I don’t know what. It’s not a source of pleasure. And when they do think, being logical and consistent is not a priority to them. Thinking for them might be more useful to rhetorically win an argument, even if it means resorting to slanderous lies, rather than being used to creatively puzzle together as much truth and knowledge as possible, for it’s own sake.
That is all this blogging thing has ever really been about for myself. Seeking truth in a world of lies. It was also this realization that Xsplat refers to as most people participate in blogging comboxes to rhetorically win an argument rather than an intellectually honest and relentless search for the Truth. This - in addition to the time required - is primarily why I no longer comment much at other blogs.
This difference in attitude to thinking has at times been a source of social isolation. I’d be all into talking about philosophy and the meanings of life, and I couldn’t find anyone else who gave a shit. I believe that my mental process itself is built to require me to write. It’s not something I put any effort into wanting to do. I’d never consider not doing it.
In this regard, I see Xsplat and a few other bloggers and commenters on teh Interwebz as kindred souls that feel the compulsion to write to clarify their own thought process and make sense of the complex and often times confusing world we all inhabit.
This is my primary motivation, which is why even though my blogging has been very infrequent as of late, I don't think I'll ever really walk away. But just looking at the turnover in the general blogosphere (not just in the MAndrosphere or the Dark Enlightenment, or NeoRX or the Paleo/Ancestral diet or any other niche blogosphere), makes me realize that most folks who participate in the great dialogue on teh Interwebz have many other differing motivations to participate, with the compulsion to write not being one of them. (This is certainly not a value judgement of anyone, just an observation that participants have varying motives.)
Another MAndrosphere OG who undoubtely also shares this compulsion to write, *** ****** who blogs over at Lust in the Age of Byrony, has noticed the same:
I look at my blog roll on my blog. So many blogs have come and gone. So much for MRA and so much for all of the blogosphere. Despite one blog title shift, my blog's been here throughout. Since the beginning, before MRA was a thing. Really, not long after PUA was a thing.
Above or beyond or whatever all that, this is here to document the heretical, the mania, the raw truth.....to be some tiny drop of truth in an ocean of lies out there. The truths we can't speak in the light of day, the truths we can only speak in anonymity.
I recently spent a few hours cleaning up my own blogroll by removing all of the links to now defunct and deleted blogs. I got rid of thirty-plus dead links that no longer link to any content whatsoever. Blogs come and blogs go. This is the nature of the beast, and not everyone is here to write because they feel the compulsion some of us have, this compulsion that Xsplat describes so well. But one thing I noted is that there are only two kinds of blogs that seem to last for longer than two or three years - those that have an obvious compulsion to write, and those that have monetized their blogging efforts and have developed a regular income stream while doing this "hobby" in the virtual world.
Even more rare, are the types who have achieved a synergy from combining both motivations into a blogging/book-selling juggernaut - folks like Vox Day, Roosh and Mike Cernovich are good examples of this.
The rest of the lower-tiered blogs (in terms of popularity/notoriety, not quality of prose!) usually find what they need at the point in their life where participation in the blogosphere seemed to help them achieve a certain level of awareness and enlightenment, then they pull the plug and either delete or abandon and leave it posted for as long as their domain name and/or server space fees are paid up. This is also one of the biggest reasons why I've never left blogspot, despite my great distaste for Google and it's SJW tendencies. They offer the best price for domain name registration and server fees. You just can't beat $FREE.99 when you're engaging in a non-revenue generating hobby like this.
That being said, I'd be liar if I didn't admit that I have been tempted several times in the past by opportunities to monetize this blog. Back in the heyday of the MAndrosphere's underground "bubble" of rising popularity ( the era of 2010 - 2013, in which a groundswell of attention was garnered prior to gaining widespread mainstream media attention,) when it seemed like new blogs where getting started and garnering immediate popularity in our corner of teh Interwebz, I received numerous offers to monetize this blog in various ways.
But my biggest reason for always rejecting these opportunities, is because of the anonymity *** ****** talks about. There is a freedom that comes with anonymity combined with uncompensated writing, and I've always been cognizant that doing this thing for the dollar would intrinsically change how and what I write about. For myself, it would mess with the purity of this exercise in practicing this
That all being said, I am also a guy who has always reserved the right to change my mind when I am presented with new, compelling information that runs contrary to my prior convictions. Perhaps someday, I'll have to have a $how of appreciation for all my regular readers of this blog, and offer a sign up drive for a subscription email newsletter for the amazing low price of $6.66 a month.
It will include a free "Game is the Red Pill" T-shirt and my booklet of officially certified Paleo Baby food recipes. Perhaps if you also hit up my tip jar, I'll send you my free Paleo Radiation Therapy guide at no extra cost (not including $9.99 shipping and handling fees). And for the most loyal subscribers and customers, I will also have a limited time offer for officially authenticated "Keoni Galt" autographed disposable air respirator kits for those of you living in Project Indigo Skyfold zones. But wait, there's more!
Act now, and I'll also throw in your choice of a "RESIST THE BRAVE NEW WORLD ORDER" hat, or exclusively for my female readers, a "I SURVIVED THE FEVER SWAMPS ON TEH INTERWEBZ" stitch-emblazoned on the rear of heavy duty, form fitting yoga pants, a $29.99 value....all these extra value-added products can be yours for FREE if you sign up today!
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Don't worry folks, sometimes my sense of whacky humor gets the best of me and I try to get too clever by half....
I'll stick with my day job.