Where Have All The Bloggers Gone...?

I just finished reading a post that spurred me to write this one. The post deals with the writer’s growing despair over the fruitlessness of her blog. She started her AOL journal apparently with the intention of making a worthy contribution to a chosen cause. But, she has all but "given up" the blog, due to lack of readership, lack of response, the feeling that she’s just one of many small voices out there piping up about the same issues…none of which have discovered the right combination of words or ideas to really spark forward movement in the battle. I’m sorry she’s discouraged. Her journal has spurred me to action in many small ways. Too small, apparently, to make it worth her time to continue. I don’t mean to pick on a fellow journaler. Who can write when the inspiration is gone? But I feel somehow diminished by her decision.

This "brain drain" from AOL journal land is reaching a dangerous crescendo. Last month, I posted an entry remarking on the growing numbers of journalers who where hanging up their pens (keyboards?) That entry got twice as many comments as most of my posts…people assuring me they weren’t going anywhere…people expressing relief that I wasn’t going anywhere… Yet the attrition has continued. Part of it, I’m sure, is that folks—especially in the East and Midwest—are busy crawling out from hibernation after a particularly brutal winter. Easy enough to sit and clickety-click the hours away when it’s blizzarding outside, but who wouldn’t want to get outside and stretch their legs and their souls once Spring finally beats Winter into submission?

The tragic part of the mass exodus is the writers who are cashing it in because they believe no one is listening, or that those of us who ARE listening are not important enough to keep them engaged. Many of the more compelling voices in journal land come from the world of academia. Their entire lives are played out among people who share their beliefs, concerns, and value systems. They can network with folks like themselves simply by stopping for a conversation in the lunch room or by picking up the phone. They don’t need the ethereal connection of the blogosphere to know that their beliefs have not alienated them from the world to the point of bitter isolation.

But what about the rest of us? What about those of us who inhabit quiet little two-horse towns, where our political and social beliefs would land us in the pillory or worse, if suchthings still existed? What about those of us who, for whatever reason, have not been able to rise to the challenges of our intellect, and are stuck in unfulfilling jobs where the buzz at the water cooler revolves around reality tv and which cubicle drone is sleeping with whom? What about those of us who are starved for intelligent voices of reason, the likes of which have been culled from the audio and video airwaves? Apparently, there are too few of us to bother with. We don’t constitute much of a market, so no one feels the need to connect with us.

"Coming to Terms…" started out as sort of an "S.O.S." for me. I had to find a way to let someone into the world inside my head, or implode. Eventually, I met with a sort of limited success. Connected with a core group of three or four women who read my ramblings, chanted responses to the questions in my head that had, up until that time, been merely rhetorical cries to the universe. And I, in turn, would go to their journals…counsel when I felt I could, agree enthusiastically with things I never knew I believed till I saw them written with someone else’s hand, click out the "atta-boys" when someone stretched beyond themselves and did good. I became a member of a community, and I thrived in it.

I may have stuck my foot in that success, though, when I started posting political rants before last year’s election. I found I had a gift for it, and a NEED for it, so I have just kept at it. Unfortunately, some of my most cherished journal friends did not want to go there. I can respect that…political and religious controversy are two of the surest ways to kill friendships. But I have gone to the point of no return with the political opinion pieces. They are part of who I am. On the other hand, I don’t feel the need to quit posting pieces about other aspects of my life, either. It seems you get no respect in journal land if your blog is not "about" something. Apparently, one’s life can only be "about" one thing at a time. So, here I am now, neither fish nor fowl. Too opinionated for the ladies that just want to write about relationships, kids, and tv shows, and not sophisticated enough for the political movers and shakers. How like me to finally find a community, then kick myself out of it!

What is the point of all this? Am I going? Am I staying? Am I mad at everyone who is leaving? I don’t know. I have no intention of quitting journal land. As I have said over and over again, I will always need to write. And this is as good a place as any to do that. But it used to be better. And it makes me sad that we so longer seem to understand the value that the sense of community had for us. Perhaps I just measure the worth of journal land with a different scale than everyone else uses. I hope I don’t have to abandon the venue in order to find what is fast slipping away from us here. If it indeed does exist anywhere, which I am beginning to doubt…