Blogging And Community
Recently I have begun to receive the odd congratulation on my seven years in my job. I didn’t know what “job” they were referring to until I looked at my Linkedin account and realised they were talking about my blogging activities which began in May 2011: it has been a voyage of self-discovery and awareness about some aspects of social media!
Quite often I go into my local café and, by custom, sit at the same table as other habitués with whom I share the news and concerns of the day. The key characteristic of this group is, for me at least, that I have never met any of them under any other circumstance or location. Should they cease to visit the café all contact would be lost and I have no phone number or address I can write to if I want to ask how life is treating them.
In the same way, if you look to the right of this post, you will see my blogroll which is largely made up of those people with whom I connected in the early days of my blogging adventure. If you look at the comments on my previous post you will see that most of these bloggers have not commented and, in some cases, their blogs no longer exist.
The irony is that, I approach life with a kind of heady innocence full of belief that every connection might be the dawn of a new friendship and a growing sense of community but I have found social media to be rather like that café and witnessed bloggers vanish from commenting and sometimes their own blogs without explanation to the point where I come to question the validity of any connection made with the exception of a few contacts with whom I have formed something like a genuine interconnected friendship. So much of social media, or my part of it, is taken up with marketing products, literary or otherwise, that you wonder how real it is.
Of course it is real but also voyeuristic in character which I was unaware of in those heady early days.
I read of lives like mine, in whole or part,lived in places I shall never see with people I will never meet and wonder how the world can be so connected and similar in its concerns yet divided at the same time.
Despite all this I never lose my interest in the idea of reaching out to other lives and cultures; and in these days of darkening and troubling political weather I am reminded of W.H.Auden’s words in 1939 at the beginning of the second world war.
“Defenceless under the night
Our world in stupor lies;
Yet, dotted everywhere,
Ironic points of light
Flash out wherever the Just
Exchange their messages:
May I, composed like them
Of Eros and of dust,
Beleaguered by the same
Negation and despair,
Show an affirming flame”
Elsewhere he states,
“We must love one another or die.” Ain’t that the truth!?
Congratulations, Mr Ducks! I’m proud to be on your blogroll. I always find it sad when bloggers vanish. Take a paddle through any old blogroll and you’ll find a sea of abandoned ships.
Sx
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You are one of those bloggers I presume to have lurched somewhere nearer to a genuine connection although obviously contained by a healthy dose of good manners, courtesy and a lack of personal curiosity as befits the very best in writing-based friendships!
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7 years hey? That’s quite an achievement. Congrats 😍
Your cafe metaphor was captivating…lovely to visualise coming together that way.
kirri x
Sent from my iPhone
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You are always remembered with affection and I always recall our Skype conversation regarding the mysteries of publishing, something I still understand very little about!
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Is that the same cafe where we shared a pleasant morning and cake? I remember it well. I may not comment very much these days but I keep an eye on your posts! You were such an inspiration and I loved the comments you made on my blog as I worked my way through my ups and downs.
Yes your quote is very apt. We must love one another or die.
xx
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Of course I remember that occasion very well, and it is indeed the same café. We always got on well and may, although I am not sure about this, have discussed the mysteries of carrot cake hysteria at that meeting. I hope all is good with you x
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I continue to get upset when bloggers disappear – and imagine all sorts of catastrophic events – especially if they disappear suddenly. But I plod on, unaware that they’re under a different site with a different pseudonym. Anyway – congrats on 7 years of bloging.
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There was a blogger for whom I had a great respect and I finally wrote a comment on an old post of his asking if he was OK and a friend of his replied on his behalf to say he had had a stroke and could no longer write, so my dears were well-founded. He is a wonderful man with a great sense of the human landscape and I still miss his posts!
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congratulations on your lucky year number 7, mine has been a 6 year stretch as of this may. interesting, i began with much the same attitude and approach, for some reason, i thought i would be connected to my readers forever and have found the reality to be quite different. through a mostly odd set of circumstances, i have actually met a few fellow bloggers, and have found them to be quite interesting, each in their own way. it is true, there are some who ‘stay’ and follow our words and the majority just stop by for a shot visit.
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As you will know, I read your blog very regularly and always enjoy it, and I think we share some of the same attitudes and outlooks which always enrich any kind of connection on this and other platforms. Thank you for always being so loyal x
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Thank you for the Auden, Peter. I enjoyed that—it brightened a rainy morning. And congratulations on seven years a-blogging 🙂
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I am a great fan of W.H. Auden and many poets of that era. They lived in troubled times and wrote about them so brilliantly
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Can’t remember exactly when we first connected, but it was many, many pints ago. It would be an understatement to say I have enjoyed immensely each and every penning since that fateful encounter. So much so, that I crossed an entire ocean to meet first-hand the author of so many fascinating scripts.
May our distant kinship continue to flourish for many more episodes!
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Entirely agree with you Al. Our is one of those connections which give me faith in the nature of blogging and the valuable way it has of connecting people who live a t a distance but share similar values. Our meeting is one of my treasured memories 🙂
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I’m so glad to have made a genuine connection with you, dear Peter!
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The feeling is entirely mutual. A great friendship with a mutual lover of the written word. What could be better in the blogosphere 🙂 ?
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Congrats Peter! I will hit 5 next month.. I think there is a lot that can be said about sticking to something like blogging for 7 years. So many start and let it go. I haven’t always been faithful in posting, but I have always tried to keep up with the ones I follow. Sadly so many I follow have disappeared. Keep up the good work! 😉
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Five years is an impressive track record. To be honest, I wouldn’t have noticed it was seven years if LinkedIn hadn’t started making a fuss about it. Always appreciate your support 🙂
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Happy Blogbirthday! Hope you don’t get a seven year itch!
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Well I always appreciate your encouraging comments and it is people like yourself which help sustain my interest in creating new stories 🙂
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Thank you! I certainly enjoy yours.
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Seems enough of us are still with you! I started in September 2011, so am a little way behind you. I know some bloggers I followed have died, but others have simply faded away … here’s to the next seven years 😀
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Well, I’ve always appreciated your comments and loved your blog so I see no reason why we shouldn’t continue to encourage each other 🙂
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You just reminded me to clean out my blogroll. I wonder how many–like yours–are gone. I like the physical group you meet with for coffee, with no other contact. That suits me nicely.
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I’m rather bad at things like “Cleaning out my Blogroll” because, apart from anything else, I tend to have a sentimental attachment to the names included in it although I have not heard from many of them for years!
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Your words echo both the best and the worst of social media, Peter. It is strange to see so many ‘follows’ from individuals (or organisations) who have their own agendas, and yet sad to see some whose blogs have been entertaining, thought provoking or touching. On a personal note when I first began my site it was as much a place to store my writing as much as anything else. Of course I was ever hopeful that someone out there would enjoy my efforts, but that would have been a bonus rather than a goal.
Like you I then developed the thought that this might be a community of like minded souls, but, like your analogy, it has become clear that this is a place of aquaintances (on the whole) – although there are the odd exceptions!
I guess connections exist (metaphorically) in the heart, and those which count will last a lifetime.
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I love your comment that this is “a place of acquaintances” because that is very apt although it is also true but genuine friendships and connections also can and, in my case, have developed 🙂
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Although I don’t remember how I happened upon your blog, I do recall that, from the first piece I heard, I was struck by the thought that here is a writer of wit and wisdom, a good human being. You have never disappointed me and for that I am grateful. You are one of those lights in the wilderness of life that I seek out, hoping to find, even for a brief moment, a reflection of my own thoughts and beliefs, a sense, however fleeting, that I am not alone.
Good writing!
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What a lovely thing to say and I must reply that “meeting” you in this way has been one of those nourishing affirming experiences sometimes offered up to us in Blogland
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Wow, 7 years. Congratulations and happy anniversary!
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Thank you very much and also for your continued visits to my blog, which always help to add light to my day 🙂
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I love your stories and hope to be reading them for many more years.
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I’ve wondered about all of those things, and not just because it is raining today. Terry
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Mmmm, rain! Can make you think a little too much which may distract from the important stuff of life like enjoying breakfast and writing cracking good prose like what you do. Always a pleasure to connect with you 🙂
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Seven years… I set up my blog at the end of April 2011. I have met many people…Some in person, some have become close friends and with yet others, the connection happens away from the public eye via the privacy of email and those I will probably never meet. Of the rest, most are those ‘butterfly friendships’…seasonal, beautiful while they are there, but flitting in and out of the picture. And some just disappear.
That ‘heady innocence full of belief that every connection might be the dawn of a new friendship’ I get too. You just never know, but you have to give possibility a chance 🙂
I don’t think the online world is all that different from its offline counterpart. There are always those with an agenda, a product, an image of self to ‘sell’ to the world. We meet hundreds of thousands of people, yet are really, properly friends with just a handful over a lifetime. I have a feeling that we just notice it more online. The Auden is perfect.
Congratulations on surviving the blogosphere for seven years, Peter. Here’s to the next 🙂
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What a brilliant comment. Full of good insights with which I totally agree 🙂
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You know, I’ve just checked and I have been subscribed to your blog for over three years, Peter…. and there has never been one disappointing post. 🙂
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There is something wonderfully old-fashioned about your blogging, in as much as anything can be ‘old’ on something as new as social media. It reminds me of the kind of writing I came across in blogs around the time I started in 2006 (different blog): there was a genuineness to both the writing and the community that grew around it that is less common today. Understandable though unfortunate, because today social media is a means to make money for many, and gathering followers seems to be everything.
Congratulations on seven years on a wonderful blog! Your creativity, kindness and generosity is much appreciated 🙂
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Also wanted to add: I love the comments I find on your posts. You have a wonderfully engaged readership, and rightly so!
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Thank you for this cheering comment and the one below which both added a smile to a day which, I might add, often starts quite well owing to Friday being “Premium Sausage Roll” day when a modest expenditure introduces me to a few moments of catering paradise. Owing to some unfortunate and forward remarks made by passing mirrors, I am only allowed one sausage roll a week. I too also love your blog and the lovely way you reflect on your studies and voyage through life 🙂
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Your facility for a turn of phrase only gets better. “Darkening and troubling political weather” is a gem. Many more happy years blogging. It’s a funny old world, for sure. Cots x
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As you know, yours has always been one of my favourite blogs, full of personality and totally lacking in self-importance which are two qualities I find it easy to admire x
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You are too kind – what a lovely compliment!
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CONGRATS, Peter!!!!!
Love. Kiss. Hug. Support.
From Minnesota. xxxxx
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Thank you so much. You and Mr Liverpool are always remembered with great affection 🙂
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Indeed. Happy Blogging Anniversary. I no longer do so, having put all I wished to share with the internet into the not so rarified air of the internet. I started in 2005 and blogged until 2013 or so, with a two year absence. Much of what I wrote was actually not on WordPress, but I did import it into a separate blog to save. A thousand or so posts are there, not of fiction.
Anyway, write on!
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First, congratulations on seven years of blogging. Second, I’m so glad you wrote about community. I have been blogging for a little over a year. Just the other day, I was reflecting on how much I enjoy interacting online with other bloggers. I wondered whether or not anyone else felt this way. Apparently some people do. Thanks for sharing.
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wow, seven years into blogging!this is crazy!love your blog, ive only been blogging for 3 months but this is whagt I want to do for the rest of my life.id love for you to check my blog out too<3
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Soooooo….. what about the next seven years??? Or do you have an itch to do something else?
Sx
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Well I love writing but in commercial terms I have been a failure of outstanding proportions so a wise man would learn a new trade as a fair ground attendant or member of parliament but then. perhaps, I am not a wise man. I hope your occupation keeps you in the comfort you deserve 🙂
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Ha!!! Good grief, no!!! Though, I guess I do have some measure of comfort, so I shouldn’t complain. I guess I was never destined for riches and posh frocks.
Sx
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Phew, 7 years… how time has flown! Tomorrow will be 7 years since my dearest mother died – which led, not too long after, to my own winding and evolving journey with blogging, through so many ups and downs, and across two continents. It is fascinating looking back at those early days, and appreciating the connections made then which still persist, despite my absences and silences. I have appreciated your connection throughout, Peter, and the solidity of your friendship, support and appreciation. I only wish my own had been as consistently expressed, if always felt x
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