Now I'm Just Like Me

 I went back and read much that I had written some 18 years ago (I think it's about 18--don't make me actually calculate it) and was surprised to find I'm still the same person.  I had thought I'd changed a lot--I was sure I'd changed a lot.  I AM sure I changed a lot.  But, well, not so much.  My writing style is still the same. You recognize it, don't you?  Sort of turned in on itself.  Obsessive, even.  And not like you, most likely.  (There's a change--I'm questioning the whole premise!)  Other people write about actual things in the world.  Their favorite music, their friends, what they did.  By 'other' I might mean 'normal'.  Normal people like you who have a life.  

Oh, I have a life too.  But it's less what I blog about.  That's not the direction I'm facing when I write.  Nor was it the direction I faced 18 years ago.  I don't know what it would be like to be that kind of person.  I could pretend and tell you the story of my day.  But those events WEREN'T the story of my day.  For me the story was what I was thinking while they happened.

And this probably has something to do with my blog's lack of readers.  They're not like me.  I'm not like them.Who'd have thought it would take me 18 years to figure that out. You could read that as me not participating in my life, but that would be wrong.  I'm very much in it.  Sometimes more than I can stand.  It's hard being alive.  I hope that's not a surprise to you.  I rarely hear people saying that, though.  Maybe it's considered rude.

That's not something, 18 years younger me would have said, is it.  Maybe it is.  I'm pretty sure he thought it.

It's later than you think

 More than three years have passed since I posted here.  Metafilter has a post encouraging people to start a blog so I felt encouraged to remember I had this one.  I could claim that the pandemic kept me away this long but it's actually the lack of audience.  An audience would scare me so I am lucky not to have one but writing for nobody isn't exactly a compelling activity.  I could post the link on Metafilter and a few people would show up (though they wouldn't comment so I would never really know) but I repeatedly discover that those (Mefi) people aren't my target audience.  I used to think that was my fault for no appealing to them but no longer do.  It's just how it is..  So far, I am the only reliable audience for what I write.  I think I'll take this opportunity to go back and read (and appreciate) what I'd written in those previous years.

The title comes from an old (older than me) song that goes "Enjoy yourself--it's later than you think."  (It turns out I am actually a few years older than the song.)  I originally meant it to indicate that much time had passed since my previous post but now I think I was suggesting that I might risk having actual readers.

If you're been reading . . .

If you've been reading this blog (and you haven't--I'm all alone here) you've already deja vu'd this. I return n years later and find my old forgotten blog (this time I find 2 old forgotten blogs) and post about the finding experience. I try to be casual about it but there's an underlying tension. There's something lonely about it yet I persist when what I really ought to do is hold it up and stare at it while asking the question "Does this blog spark joy?"

Well, does it, punk? I'm not even sure what joy feels like. (The answer comes to me--if you're not sure, it sure ain't joy.)

And yet I can't dispose of it as one is supposed to do with non-joy sparking things. And so, here we are.

Original sin

I just googled the handle I'm using on a particular site and discovered the name I had made up had been independently made up by several others. I tried a few other of my "original" handles and found the same is true of those as well. I assume the others who are named just like me believed themselves to be uniquely named, as did I, and just like me they were mistaken.

Before the internet, there was no way of discovering this. Before the internet, I could get away with thinking I wasn't just like you. I could believe myself to be original. The sin of my imagined difference can no longer be supported in the presence of modern technology.

Perhaps, at this exact moment, someone else who'd thought themselves original is also discovering otherwise. Just like me.

Mathematically speaking, someone was chronologically first with an idea, but perhaps that firstness is not really important. It could be a mere coincidence. They just happened to be the first instance of where an idea whose time had come couldn't be stopped.

See? Here's a new post!

Has it been over a year an a half already? Time, you know, flies. Well, if I don't post something, it might be two years or three or more by the time I wandered in here and clicked "New Post." And then typed a bunch of stuff (that's the part I'm doing now.) So am I still like you? Well, no. I got older and you stayed the same age. (How'd you do that?) But, other than that, I am still like you in all the ways that matter. I'll bet you sometimes let time go by and don't post anything (those of you old enough to have let time go by, that is.) And even if you don't. that's not a real difference--a significant difference. I just started a new blog. Because sometimes it's easier to start new things all the time instead of maintaining the old. But I'm also maintaining! See? Here's a new post!

I'm no longer like you.

It's been over 5 years since I've posted in this blog. Yet it sat here patiently waiting, my old posts just where I left them, read by no one (approximately. or maybe exactly) and now circumstances have brought me back, like a bad penny. I have as little to say now as I did then and I'm saying it. Blogger is no longer what people use so now I'm no longer like you. You have moved on to F******k, twitter or Wordpress. But not to G+. Someone must be using G+. Was that the moment when Google lost its magic? When G+ didn't get the following Google was insisting on? People would have to be invited to stuff before. Even Google wave required an invite before it finally waved goodbye. So, I'll be back sometime. Probably not soon, but it will happen. See you then. Keep the faith.

I was in the neighborhood, and . . .

. . .I thought I should drop in and post something. I've changed in some ways since I was here last, though I'd be hard pressed to say what those changes might be. I hardly remember the "me" that posted the last entry on this blog, even though he's just like you and, no doubt, like me now as well.

I got here by posting on someone else's blog and then I remembered I had one of my own. I was just like them. I wonder if he will follow the link and read this.