Bloggers and vacations
The Wall Street Journal is on to the not-so-well-kept secret of bloggers, which is that is that they tend to have some degree of obsessive-compulsive disorder.
The ubiquity of the internet, laptops, and the like means that bloggers need never be very far away from their connections. Now, “connection” is a word with a double meaning, of course: it can refer to being hooked up to the Web, or simply to being hooked, as in “addicted.”
Yes, some would argue that blogging is an addiction–perhaps what’s referred to as a Positive Addiction, but an addiction nonetheless.
The WSJ article highlights the very special dilemma facing bloggers who want to take some time off:
In the height of summer-holiday season, bloggers face the inevitable question: to blog on break or put the blog on a break? Fearing a decline in readership, some writers opt not to take vacations. Others keep posting while on location, to the chagrin of their families. Those brave enough to detach themselves from their keyboards for a few days must choose between leaving the site dormant or having someone blog-sit.
According to the WSJ, even the biggest bloggers seem to mull over–or perhaps obsess over–the problem.
But me? No. Not moi. Not addicted, not at all. No siree. I have no difficulty whatsoever in resolving this issue. When I’m on vacation–and I’ve taken rather lengthy ones each of the two summers I’ve been blogging–I continue to post. But I take a middle road and lighten my load considerably. I won’t bore you with the secrets of how I do it, but I’ve managed to keep up the blog without ruining my vacations. At least so far.
The truth is that bloggers depend on addictions, both in themselves and in others. After all, aren’t we trying to form an addiction in our readers–an addiction to reading our blogs? Maybe a better word would be “habit”–makes us all feel better.
And, just to show how very unaddicted I am, I’m now going out to enjoy some of that thing known as “real life.” Till later…
I can stop blogging any time. No, really. 😉
Sweety,I love your blog.
What? Me addicted – nawwww – compulsion, addiction, necessity, obligation, duty, fun, development, sharing – there are many things connected and intertwined with blogs and bloggers and I don’t pay much attention to any MSM outlet that lumps it all in a bunch, summarized and identified with a simplistic assessment and label – it’s spin on a very complex vehicle of social change and expression deemed by many to now be another institution of human culture. Whew! That’s alot of energy expended by an addict.-
Wittgenstein had a concept which I find very useful, which is that the meanings of the same word, such as “addiction”, are related in the same way as are the links of a chain. They individually overlap, but the end is or can be far away from the beginning.
Nor do words interact with reality – we do. You can’t avoid it, once you get the bug, so that vacations are not divorced from this interaction or “confrontation with” reality.
The problem of being on top of your own blog 24/7 is occasioned, imo, more by the threat posed by 24/7 Fliberal propaganda designed to convert reality into Fliberal perceptions than it is by the need to maintain visitorship – the latter itself being a typically Fliberal ultimate need.
So I wouldn’t worry too much overall about taking a “vacation” or being “addicted” in a bad way – unless you become divorced from reality in the manner of the Fliberals.
That’s easy for me to say, isn’t it? Especially when I also actually feel somewhat negligent for not being on top of everything Fliberals do and say at all times. But why be sucked into their whole Fantasylife by having to immediately respond to every dum bass thing they say, which as a rule constitutes about everything they say? The hiatuses from their onslaughts are very instructive, and something which they themselves do not experience, in my view. They are stuck with their dysfunctional selves 24/7. It looks like pure misery to me.
I prefer calling it attention to detail…but if you wanna label it OCD, feel free.
I see, in my mind, Tel Aviv in a mushroom cloud.
Is there any way I can prevent that horrible event from happening?
Yeah, I think I’m addicted…
HTML tags allowed in your comment: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <s> <strike> <strong>