Brainstorming

“Do you know your name?”

I kinda feel like the last couple of days have been my Jerry Maguire moment.  You know, the barely likeable protaganist in the movie of the same name?  (I looked up the spelling of the last name.  I have checked it so many times now that the word looks weird.  I hate it when that happens.)  I am referring to the scene where he is in the hotel room and has an epiphany about the business he is in.  So, with the best of intentions and raw, unbridled passion, he writes his mission statement.  He heads to a copy shop and has it printed up beautifully and sends it to his agency to be distributed to everyone in the building.  After initial applause and thumbs up, he is fired. He then proceeds to lose everything.

Unlike Jerry, I don’t have a whole lot to lose.  Except myself.

So now what?  Well, I have things I can write about that are passions of mine.  I can give my opinion on them.  When they run out, I’m done.  It will be like the Encyclopedia of Liz.  The Lizipedia.  I do change my mind a lot.  I don’t waffle, but if new facts come to light, I am open to them, and can modify my view.  I’m a person, not an obelisk!

With that, I set a new course.  I am the Unblogger, the NoBlogger, the Anti-Blogger.  I feel like I should have a ring of power, or a staff of sanity, something to channel this new superpower.   Before I leave this earth, you. will. know. me.  Love it or leave it.

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Blogs, & The Bloggie Bloggers who Blog Them

A couple of years have now passed and I imagine myself to have enough clout to write on the business of blogging.

Blogging.  Blogging. Blog.  The word used to bring me such excitement!  Such drive!  Inspired ambition!  Life became the stage and I the critic.  All performances catalogued, reviewed, sealed with a snapshot.  In the beginning there was blogging and I awoke daily to the challenge of networking.  I poured over similar blogs, popular blogs, dream blogs.  I left comments, posted links to my site.  I relished the growing number that appeared daily in my statistic bar. I asked for advice on growing my blog.  I sought out ways to make a little money.  I dreamed of being Pioneer Woman.

I banked it all on the fact that if I could just get my words out there for five years, I would gather a sort of cult following.  My family was quirky, messy, and supreme enough to get noticed.  I am intelligent, witty, and hilarious…that makes my opinion WORTH something.  Word of blog had only to spread and all my dreams would come true.

Then I began to notice…I am a dime a dozen.  Everyone and their mother is blogging about the same things.  Children who annoy them.  Family members who annoy them.  Pregnancies.  Marriage.  Crafting.  Cooking.  Cleaning.  Politics.  We are all self appointed despots with a “message”.

Suddenly, I felt a small needling in my ribs.  What is my blog?  A mish mash of other blogs, stuck in the Master Format of Blogging Perfection?  Blog.  Blogging.  Blogging.  The word began to sound more like a belch accompanied by mornings breakfast.  Sour.

I spent a huge amount of money for the “real blogger camera”.  I WOULD have spent more, had I had the money. In fact, it bothered me that I didn’t have the Nikon D90 longer than I would like to admit.  I could not walk outside, or do something with my children without obsessing over a photo op.  The pictures were there only  to say, “Look at me!  I am a good mother.  I am worthy!  Tell me I am worthy!”  It was like high school all over again.

High school.  Blech.  Competing with people who never gave a darn and who have even less bearing on my life now.  Not something I want to repeat.  Ever.

So what does an aspiring blogger who is suddenly disaffected with blogging do?  Do I lay it aside?  Do I keep going, but this time with eyes wide open and ears pricked?  Do I write what I want, how I want, when I want and not give a rip about who is reading?  Wordless Wednesday, Flashback Friday, and Gratituesday be damned!  If I want to put up 20 pictures, or not, while I am cooking, I can.  Do I step out of the shackles that are chained to an anvil marked “Waiting For The World’s Approval”?

For now, I am thinking.  I will keep thinking.  About the big stuff.  What do I want to be a part of?  Who am I trying to be?  Does the world tell me who I am?  Am I who God wants me to be?  What is the role I was meant to play in His world?  Am I helping my fellow man, or standing on his head?  Am I leaking love all over the place, so much so that it gets on other people?

That’s the big stuff.  For those things…keep your camera in the case.  Just open your arms.  Wide.

Goodbye Twitter

Step one of Operation Social Media Purge has officially began.  I have deactivated my Twitter account.  I have 30 days to reconsider.  I hope I will remain strong.

Why the sudden hate of social media?  Reason number one is the ugliness of people.  The comments people make about each other.  The fact that it just hangs out there in cyberspace and it somehow makes it allllll okay.  No, it’s not okay to tear people apart.  It’s NOT okay to trash people.  I am JUST as guilty as everyone else.  So don’t think I am in the clouds on this one.  Nope, I’m in the trenches and it’s bloody!

I only had a handful of people who I actually connected with.  There is one person in particular I will miss.  Her tweets were about baby stuff, her pregnancy and how it was progressing.  (I am obsessed with pregnancy and babies.  From gossip magazines with pregnant stars to baby shows, I  follow it all.  I have too!  I just have to see those tiny feet and hands!) But I can always read her blog for that.  I don’t need to lurk on Twitter.

Something happened that soured me to Twitter.  I won’t go into it, but it totally tanked my hope in mankind.  Social media can be used for great things, but it can be used for very hurtful things as well.  I don’t really need the option of venting my personal frustrations with others online.  I’ve done it.  It’s the new redneck.  By just dumping it out there for all to see, especially to those who don’t KNOW me, I am never going to get an objective opinion on what I have done.  I’ll just listen to the ones that build me up and set me further on my course.  That could be good, but it could be very, very bad.

The people I need to hear from are a phone call away.  Their voice can tell me what I need to know.  They won’t sugarcoat.  They won’t tear me down.  They won’t play the supportive role, then run off and tell everyone what an idiot I am.  They tell me, with love, to my face that I am stumbling and they are there to hold me up if I need it. Likewise, they will tell me if I am beating myself up a little too much.  It’s a beautiful thing.

Hopefully, by shutting the door on Twitter (and maybe Facebook.  Heck I may shut down the blog as well.  Blogs have pretty much jumped the shark anyway) I am saying to the Universe that I am ready for more organic, fulfilling friendships.   Talk to me people.