Date posted: April 13, 2007 - Friday
Title: A note in a bottle
Current mood: curious
It's late on a Thursday evening and the total on my profile views counter is 2,588. At the same time the number of people who have viewed the blogs I have written totals 1056. Not a whole lot for being on MySpace almost two years, I guess. If I had ever been one of the "Cool New People" or a constant blogger the numbers would be huge, but the numbers I have got me to thinking.
Who are these anonymous people?
I watch the numbers of people who have viewed my profile grow like the passing of the days. One here, three there; piled one upon another. Sometimes none for days, then several within hours. But who are they? What draws them? How do they find me, or at least the electronic representation of me?
Now I have to admit I have done the anonymous browsing through MySpace. Seen a picture on someone's blog comment and gone to that profile to see more about the person. When I first started using MySpace I might even leave a message, but since I got no responses in return I stopped noting my passage through their profile and became more of a lurker. Rude I know, but not as hurtful as being ignored when you do take the time and make the effort to reach out.
And I think my curiosity is most aroused by the people who read my blogs and make no comment or make any note of their passing. Writing blogs seems to be like putting notes into bottles and casting them out to sea. You hope they will find their way to some foreign shore and the person who finds them will be interested enough to reach out to the messenger who has cast his thoughts to fate and the seas.
For a long time I had harbored illusions of making a literary impact in life. Even while proceeding along a different path, those waking dreams of writing notoriety and perhaps fame spun their tales in the far corners of my mind. They may still lurk there in the dark recesses, but tempered now by years of travel on strange roads far from the life of pen and ink; years of using whatever talents I may have been given to accomplish different ends than the production of noted tales.
At least blogging gives me the illusion that I am not wasting what may be the gift I have been given. I can still the voice which cries within me when I have been too long away from notebook, typewriter or computer keyboard. But I do not feel it has the substance or import of what has gone through the filter of an editor or publisher. And the longing for that commercial approval still burns within me if only with a tiny flame.
What blogging may give is a more immediate feedback of approval or rejection than those products of a
