Defining Success

Someone asked me recently why I did not try to make my blog more successful.

In retrospect, how or why I was not offended by this seemingly offensive inquiry is rather astonishing. Really, I hadn't time to be irked because my innner social scientist was focused on the fact that the question itself presupposes that "successful" has a universally accepted definition. An arguable fact, in my opinion.

But I see the point. At least, in our culture, "success" is often equated with that which is both lucrative and universally appealling. Given such a definition, my blog is quite the raging failure. However, I never expected to either make money nor reach a vast number of people by merely spouting my own ideas willy-nilly on a public space.

Wouldn't such an expectation make me delusional? Or would it just make me a really successful reality TV star? Well, six of one... as the saying goes.

The point of my blog is simply for me to have a space to write. It is a way to keep me accountable to myself and a way to share some of the nonsense that marinates in my mind with my few friends and family who actually read this thing. But I am not exactly teaching anyone anything or offering concise snippets in the bite-size quantities that statistics report are necessary for "successful" blog and website articles. So one might wonder: "What is the point?"

I suppose that question is not a bad one. But for so many of the writing assignments I complete, I have to condense prose to its barest bones. Often, I have to strip away a lot of what I love about writing because, in our "time-is-money" society, people do not have time to read all the fluff.

I don't particularly blame them. After all, I am a circuitous writer who favors flowery language rife with descriptive adjectives and complicated vocabularly words. Hemingway would have hated me (Though I would have had a bit of beef with his whole male macho deal too, so touche, Ernie). I recognize that my style is not appealling to many and is downright repellant for those looking to quickly scan web content, grab a sound bite of information, and be on their way to another site.

In a fast-food nation, I offer the three martini lunch version of blog entries.

Though let me just say that if you did have three martinis while you read, I guarantee you would find that my entries make much more sense than you soberly suspected. And they would be funnier too.

My point: how I fit in the blogosphere is a good question. But then again, so is how I fit into life in general. My ducks are still not in a row, as deviant as ever, if you will. Maybe someday I'll write 300-500 word entries with bullets and boxes and be as scannable as the average person's 30-second of blog reading time allows. Maybe I'll have a focused topic such as rating the cupcake frosting at bakeries across the United States, or reviewing celebrity memoirs.

Until I decide which hole in which to pigeon myself, I am afraid you are stuck with my meandering musings on whatever tickles my fancy--or irks my socks off--on any given day.

Now I realize why that initial remark/insult did not ruffle my feathers: success is subjective. And I just feel lucky to have a place to write what I like, when I like. That sounds pretty successful to me.