So, I’ve been contemplating splitting this blog into two blogs, one which would cover politics, policy and the culture war, and one which is more a personal observations about life blog. Of course the politics, policy and culture war blog would retain the “CosmicConservative” name, and the new blog would have a more whimsical and approachable name. The “new” blog would have more observations about my personal life and be less partisan, in fact it would probably have very few political observations at all.
Any thoughts on this contemplation?
22 users commented in " Blog fission decision… "
Follow-up comment rss or Leave a TrackbackAs your blog is a reflection of you, I don’t see any need to divide it into parts. You’re you, and we read about all parts of you because we find you interesting.
Yeah, we do, believe it or not.
Well, I wonder if I was actually more forthcoming about myself if that would be more or less interesting…
I don’t see any need to split your blog. Seems fine just the way it is.
I do have an honest question, however. Why would you want to reveal more of your personal life on a blog accessible to any species of stranger and/or miscreant? What is the basis of the compulsion some people have to lay their lives out for the world (wide web) to see and comment on? I’m just amazed by some of the deeply personal things people reveal about themselves and their families on their blogs. I just don’t get it.
As a former contributor to this blog, I have to admit to understanding the blogging compulsion to an extent. But, ultimately, I realized I’m much too private of a person to remain comfortable casting my cherished pearls before countless anonymous swine (e.g. unknown lurkers not regular commenters).
You claim to have atavistic tendencies. I think I’ve got you beat.
Cosmic, I don’t think another spot is necessary, but I’m not in charge of your thinking processes. I mean, well…you are who you are, and you’re interested in the things you’re interested in, and you have history and memories, etc.
It all goes in to making the whole person.
I understand what Dadman is saying in a way. I certainly can respect a private person, and understand what could happen. I’ve taken a different approach, but that’s just me. Heck, I probably only have 30 or 40 regular readers. But, I’ve gotten to know most all of them “outside” the blog. I’ve been able to meet many face to face, and have not been disappointed with the friendships that are emerging.
It’s a fraternal thing with me, and it has been quite enriching. I’ve gotten help from many, and been able to help others occasionally. I don’t know, maybe I have revealed too much. But to this point, it’s been very rewarding.
Once again, that’s just me.
I think if you want to make the split, you should try it out and see how it goes.
If you fail to spot the Higgs boson, you can always turn to blog fusion.
Dadman, part of this is tied to my previous posting about burnout. Part of that burnout has to do with some of the struggles I have in my personal life, struggles I have barely hinted at on this blog because of my general desire for privacy but also because I feel that cluttering up a supposedly politically oriented blog with the daily travails of my personal life is at best confusing to potential new readers, and at worst it is just boring and viewed as self-serving. Either way I don’t think it helps to attract or retain participants.
Secondly, as my personal challenges continue to grow and take precedence over my partisan interests, I find myself less inclined to post anything at all because my brain is full of other things than Barack Obama, and with no suitable outlet for those thoughts, I find myself obsessing on them to the point that my partisan observations suffer.
Andy, part of my contemplation of a second, more personal, blog is because of the potential opportunity for my sharing of specific difficulties as a means of reaching out and interacting with other people with similar issues, both as pure therapy, and as a way to solicit advice and to offer suggestions to others who deal with similar situations. I’ve been reading some “personal” blogs lately and I have been moved, sometimes to tears, by some of the stories and the remarkable support networks I’ve seen. Usually these “personal” blogs are not truly “personal” because names, locations and other identifying characteristics are usually withheld, while the issues and struggles are presented with a sometimes brutal honesty. I would take that approach myself, no names or distinguishing information, but honest presentation of things that might help others to appreciate that they are not alone, and perhaps on occasion find a nugget of wisdom that could make the Cosmic Clan’s lives easier to deal with.
JSullins, well, yes I can just do it and not even mention it here. I considered that too.
Not yet sure what I will do.
Put me on the interested list if you do
Easy to say now, j.
Heh, well unless you intend to post detailed accounts of colon-related medical procedures, I don’t see any reason why something you post would turn me away, if that’s what you’re implying. I found our most recent exchange in this area (about children, not colons) to be thought-provoking.
…see, there I am still addicted to parentheticals…
Well I appreciate that. “Thought provoking” is probably a more positive response than “horrified” I suppose.
Which gives me an opportunity to reveal at least one thing if I do decide to start a separate blog. Do not expect it to be uplifting, funny and light-hearted. My personal life is many things, but those three adjectives would probably be the last three that could be used to describe my personal life.
I’m still experimenting with blogging, but if you think doing a personal blog will help, I say go for it.
There’s no doubt documenting personal thoughts and feelings can be cathartic, but why wouldn’t you go directly to established friends to confide and vent rather than air it all out on the internet? Before blogging, that’s typically what happened and I honestly found it to be a much more honest and satisfying experience. Blogging, in my humble opinion, has played a significant role in reducing friendship to a series of (mostly ignored) comments on a blog posting.
I guess in the future we’ll all have blog buddies or no buddies at all.
Ultimately, I think those who blog have a need to be heard and a need for an audience, and that describes a whole lot of people (including me to some extent). I don’t necessarily think there is anything wrong with that unless the blogging begins to crowd out the other, more personal, modes of communication.
Just my two or three cents…
Well in some ways it is easier for some people (possibly including me) to “confide” what are probably deep personal failings anonymously to strangers than it is to do so with close personal friends and/or family. This is, of course, just another level of revealing a personal failing, but it is nevertheless true. No doubt such a thing is due to personal delusions of individual competence that for some reason are important to maintain, especially among those from whom companionship or approval is sought.
Soul searching can be a very difficult experience, particularly when one is having trouble locating the very object of the search.
I suspected as much. It’s a very odd thing from my perspective, but I’ll continue my own personal quest to fully grok it.
But I don’t know if I ever will…
BTW, is your family okay with the idea of a blog in which their lives may be prominently featured? My wife would club me if I tried such a thing.
It’d be totally anonymous!
Probly should discuss, eh?
This whole line of discussion brings to mind one of those anti motivational posters a coworker had on his office wall. It showed a serene seascape from which jutted the rusting remains of the prow of a once-mighty ship, with the legend: “Perhaps your purpose in life is to serve as a warning for others.”
Dadman wrote: “Ultimately, I think those who blog have a need to be heard and a need for an audience, and that describes a whole lot of people…”
Hmmmmm…
There is a bunch of grass to chew on in that one. I wonder if it’s the same for those that Facebook, or Tweet, or maybe even are fortunate enough (or talented enough) to be regularly published authors, or preachers, or politicians, or TV/radio personalities, or, etc.
I do need to process that, but my first thought is that 99%+ of us want to be heard, and have an audience of at least one (not counting ourselves). I’m pretty sure that there are dozens of people on the planet that doesn’t apply to. But, I’ve only met a few myself as I think about it. One guy comes immediately to mind…and he is the best man I’ve ever known.
Hmmmmmm…
Heh. Only dozens, eh?
That may be. And I do think it applies to those who use FB, Twitter, authors, politicians, etc.
But, I think those who blog are really seeking a much larger audience, if they can attract it, for any number of reasons that includes the desire to make a little money (if feasible) and the belief that they have something unique to offer. Regular bloggers, I think, are not content to only have an audience of one. Deep down in their bones they want more.
But what do I know, really?
I can say that a big impetus to my deciding to blog was the book “Ender’s Game” which described a worldwide web remarkably similar to today’s internet decades before the first web browser was created. In that book the protagonist and his sister used the web to publish a series of conversations which were central to the philosophical theme of the book.
I thought that was the coolest idea I had seen in years.
I admit the implementation of that idea, in my case at least, has fallen far short of my goals though…
Ah yes, Peter and Valentine (aka Locke and Demosthenes). I didn’t know ‘Ender’s Game’ was your inspiration to begin blogging.
BTW, I just recently read ‘Ender’s Shadow’ Card’s parallel novel focused on the character Bean. It’s not as good a ‘Ender’s Game’, but is better than ‘Speaker for the Dead’ and ‘Xenocide’ I think. Looking forward to completing the ‘Shadow’ series…right after I’ve finished ‘American Sphinx’ and ’1491′.
Too many books, too little time…
It was a major influence. I was also influenced by discovering Dean’s World, which was a prominent blog run by an ex-employee of mine. I figured if he could do it, I could do it. Alas, he started years before me when it was still unusual to run a blog, and that helps a lot to develop a following.
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