State of the Blog
Next week marks the first anniversary of this blog — which, in case you’ve forgotten (and I bet you have) is called Element of Uncertainty.
I was uncertain about a lot when I started it. I still am! But I did learn a few things.
The first is that I haven’t lost the knack for cranking out a few hundred decent words on a regular schedule. This is my fiftieth post of the year — well, forty-ninth, since The Fabulous Wife wrote that one about opera — so I came up with something new almost weekly. That’s been incredibly reassuring!
I also learned that I can usually make my point in six hundred words or less. Which is great, because I don’t want to take up too much of your time. Three minutes once a week strikes me as a modest ask for your attention.
Finally, I learned that despite coming up with a grand unified theory of human behavior three decades ago — that we’re all vulnerable — I remain fascinated by the subject and love sharing what I’ve learned. The first post, my grand statement, was only the first about human behavior. Probably about a quarter of the ones I’ve done this year deal primarily with the human psyche.
As for the rest, another ten or so were primarily about politics. I count roughly eight that were about art. Six were about our travels in Scandinavia (not including the three about art, which I put in that category). Five or six were about religion, and four were primarily about baseball (which for me is a form of religion). The rest were pretty much one-of-a-kinds.
Except to announce on Facebook that I’ve posted a new entry, I’ve done absolutely nothing to promote the blog, so readership is small — just the way I like it! I’m writing for friends and family, not for wide attention. Thirty of the posts received between one dozen and two dozen reads. The baseball posts did worse — what happened to all my Giant-fan friends? Several others, with no noticeable pattern, did better.
The most-read post was the one about Chris Patti, the work colleague senselessly killed last August. A few weeks after I wrote it, Chris’s wife found it. She loved it and let her many friends know about it. Last I checked, it had gotten 141 reads.
The plan is to keep going! Ideally, I’d like to post even more frequently and increase the range of topics. I’m not promising that, but I consider it a realistic ambition.
I want to thank all of you for reading. I very much appreciate your time, and I even more appreciate the feedback I get from you. I look forward to another year — and perhaps more — of adding to my Element of Uncertainty.
