5000 hits of blogging

So, after 9 months of existence, this blog has clocked 5000 hits. No great or even mentionable achievement. But still, let me say this – parabim paraboo…yipppi yooo…. Like many people I too initially had the idea of making some money out of blogging (Yes, e-commerce may not have changed lives, but no other concept has the power to make people think that they too could get rich). But I soon realized that blogging was not even close to provide me with an alternate career to management consulting. (I have made $3 through Google Adsense so far).

The other thing I realized was that when given a forum, there are very few issues that one could really talk about. Yes, most bloggers including myself react to news items or the same issues (In US: abortion, gay marriages, Iraq war, evolution; in India: Greg Chappell, Sanskrit, secularism, corruption, Sania Mirza etc.). And there are hardly any new arguments put forward in either side of the equation. So, before blogging, I thought that there are so many things I would like to voice my opinion on, if given a chance; and when given a chance, I had to search extensively for what are the things I could write decently about.

And what about people who have visited my blog and left comments? They are a curious lot. The posts which were meant to be humorous were decently accepted. But whenever I took a slightly contrarian stance on any issue of importance (Capital punishment, nationalism, religion, obesity etc.), the comments were seriously against me. But then that was to be expected. If I were to classify bloggers as a homogenous community and took the lowest common denominator, these are their characteristics: 1) No matter how much they despise the mass media, their thoughts are largely shaped by the mass media. 2) In general, bloggers are politically correct and adhere to commonly accepted status quo like Indian secularism 3) Bloggers are largely retro, many of their posts including some of mine are about how good things were a few years back, and for some India enthusiasts, a few thousand years back 4) Bloggers like to show off their social contributions- either through their own posts or through comments on other’s 5) And of course, most bloggers believe that they are a part of a great revolution, that they are on course to change the world for the better through blogging. Bloggers are like football coaches -as Eugene McCarthy- they are smart enough to know it, and dumb enough to believe that it’s important.

So after 5000 hits, I am still a fly swirling around the long tail. I have neither made money, nor got a book contract, nor have made many new friends. So what the hell? Blogging was all about diverting myself a bit from day to day chores. It was to me just another not-so boring way to kill time between life and death of the cells that make me. And after all, to me that’s the meaning of life – to kill time between life and death without much discomfort. More on that on my next post. Yes, I shall keep on blogging.