“…bloggers…”

They say it as if it is a very bad word. They use it in disdain with their meaning clear: all bloggers are shitty wannabes. This refers to anyone who engages in writing about politics, and there are many. Some are pure writers, going through research to give a crisp commentary you can understand in a world gone mad.

Most have emotional expression in their posts, and there’s nothing wrong with being emotionally motivated.

I heard something on a morning news program. Something with “bloggers” in the middle. Spoken darkly, marginalizing every blogger on earth because it wasn’t specific; just “bloggers” and nothing else.

Once, I wrote a blog called “The Top Ten Mispronounced Words In Baltimore” and someone liked it well enough that they linked it from the site of a Baltimore radio station. But then, a month or more later, I relapsed and wrote something full of anger. It wasn’t a nice post and I was filled with regret but it was too late. It was seen by the person I believed had linked my earlier one to the radio station website. He opened his portion of the morning news with a kind of sick expression. You see, this man split his time between a local television station and its sister radio station. He said, “Well, there’s not a lot of positive going around this morning.”

And without being paranoid or some other weird shit I knew in my gut that he had read the horrible post and I had lost him as a reader. That was okay with me; famous people make me nervous because I feel I have to live up to what they want to read. And it’s okay to write things you think people want to read. It’s not okay if you do it just for them, for whatever you think they want from you, if you don’t really want to write it or you’re not really feeling it.

Whether or not he had followed me after the top ten list,  I can’t say. Whether or not he read my unhinged post and reacted to it, I have only my gut to go on.

Later on he announced that he would be choosing the best blogger in Baltimore and by then I knew how he was. Not the type of person I would like to have coffee with. He had a reputation for putting his foot in his mouth, for using sexist remarks, and worse. So there’s the possibility that he would pick people, bloggers, and think that I was watching, and be hurt when my name never came up.

But I’ve never been a top blogger anywhere except for a few times back on MySpace when mean people clicked on my blog and used something called an “auto-refresher”, which kept their browser on that page but kept refreshing it so that every two or so minutes, MySpace counted that computer as another view, driving me to the number two spot the next morning. It happened again a couple of times but not by people who wanted my blog to be seen because they liked it. They wanted me in the top ten because they thought people would see how stupid I was and draw a lot of bullies in to comment.

I had to learn a lot of things at the hands of mean people who did not like my perspective. Or my general political beliefs or my opinion on religion or whatever. I ended up with a massive number of people I had to block, and God only knows how many blocked me. What turned me off for the last time was that I began to find it very easy to say terrible things in comments or posts about almost everyone. Friends included.

I wondered what the hell had happened to me. What went wrong, and why.

The simple fact is that I let emotions run loose and didn’t choose my words very carefully, and never paused to cool off before hitting “Enter”.

I could make excuses.

I could say I was seeing doctors who gave me drugs that weren’t doing me any good, were in fact hurting me, affecting my mind and my body. And all of that is true.

I could claim that PTSD and bipolar disorder combined with the wrong medications were a factor, and that would also be true.

In the end, however,  I claim full responsibility for every word I have ever written or said, the good, the bad and the worst. Ultimately we have the responsibility to be truthful, honest to our conscience and to all who might read our words. I have learned these things, forgotten them, and learned them again. Paid dearly for my mistakes and poor judgement and I have lost wonderful friends.

To All News Outlets

And, humbly, I ask to be taken for who and what I am. If you use the noun “blogger” on us all and lump us together as amateurish hacks, then you have missed the entire amateur writer population sight unseen. If you, (like the Morning Joe crew), lump us all together and use the name in a tone that insinuates your desire to spit, shame on you. There’s a pool of talent out in the blogosphere that you and your colleagues could benefit from. And it isn’t just about talent. They have access to sources that I know you don’t. I know it. I’ve heard things well before TV or websites “broke” stories.

The simple fact that cable TV news like MSNBC hasn’t taken down the BREAKING NEWS banner from their screen speaks to how they have dulled people to the impact of current events.

Pardons talked about since last evening are still “Breaking”. No, they’re not. They were breaking last night.

That expression used to mean something. It used to grab attention. The bottom of the screen banner rarely goes away now. And you wonder why people are numbing to the dangers of the coronavirus? How foolish can you be? You are the ones partly, perhaps mostly responsible, for covid-fatigue, a real and deadly situation caused by isolation, fear, anger and the resultant indifference to all of that because they’ve been overwhelmed. Overloaded. By you.

That’s why otherwise responsible people are seeing family this Christmas. It’s why New Year’s Eve parties will be attended. And it’s why people who don’t have to die will die.

Why We Write

There are, of course,  professional bloggers. They have outstanding commitment, inexhaustible sources, and they can’t imagine doing anything else.

Most of us don’t even own our domain. We are the true amateurs, doing something out of a pure love not affected by money and views and followers. There’s such a vast array of subjects to address, but a lot of the best reads are very personal. Someone sharing a lesson they learned from great trials. With more courage than any White House reporter, they open their hearts, tell you their past, share the things they have learned. These stories are precious, and yes, they absolutely do help others, because those stories end with hope and all the positive things you can find.

Yesterday after five years on WordPress, I got an achievement notice. It was for most “likes” in one day. Five to be exact,  surpassing my previous high of four. I rarely look at my statistics unless I get a notice that someone new has followed me.

I didn’t start this for likes and views. I am doing this for myself,  but also for you. You are the one person reading this right now. That makes you very important to me. Because you might be the one person I can help by sharing my past and my present. Because maybe something I’ve written will make sense to you, and maybe the words will help you to know that you are not alone. That you are precious and have a lot of potential that maybe you haven’t believed you had. You may be the one person I came here for because I knew you would come, but never knew who you would be.

Are you that person? Can you see my changes as you read through my archived stories? Can you see me letting go of my bitterness?

What are the things that have hurt you? What might have made you feel bitter or angry? Who could have put you through enough pain to make you so angry?

Perhaps something in my archives can help. Perhaps we have something in common in our past. And you might decide that you like the idea of dealing with your past because you can feel how much it affects your present. I hope it’s possible that you will find things to think about here. I hope this holiday season is the first one of many as you begin to like yourself for you instead of hating yourself for what others think you are or convinced you that you were a long time ago, starting you on a journey that changed you forever. I hope you begin a new relationship with yourself that isn’t so toxic. One in which you see yourself as I know I would see you: special, unique, gifted with your own strengths yet able to learn from mistakes.

And don’t worry about it when people lump you together with others; those people speak from their own bitterness and quite a lot of ignorance. Don’t let them pull you down, don’t be hurt by the words of others. Ignore or forgive them, you have the power to do both. You have something to offer this world, something no one else can offer. Soon it will be the right time for you to go out and do it.

God bless all my readers, all who visit and again, my deepest thanks for sticking with me or just stopping by. Unlike statistics, you mean much to me.  From the bottom of my heart, happy holidays, and be safe.