Signing Off

So, after much internal deliberation, I have realized that this blog is pretty much a waste of time. Besides being a place to vent my opinions for the eyes of a couple of friends, to whom I will likely just repeat the same bloviations in person over beers in the near future, I don't really see the point of this exercise. It sort of helps me to organize my thoughts about the current events and how they relate to larger ideas that bounce around in my head, but why do I have to do that in a public forum? Other bloggers say pretty much what I want to say, just much better and more incisively. And quicker, too. I'm looking at you, drifty.

I'm not changing any minds or influencing policy or deconstructing important issues in a fresh and exciting way here and I just never found the audience I hoped to one day have. Maybe I even thought I might, but besides a forum for my bitching about random shit, the inchoate vibe of this particular stop on the inter-webs never really gelled into an interesting and coherent identity.

I've been at this blogging thing for almost three years now and my readership has never grown beyond people I actually know personally, and even among that limited group, I remain stubbornly stuck in the single digits for readership. And as for actual dedicated, interested readers... those I could count on one hand. Twice.

Granted, most of the fault for this paucity of traffic is my own. I know that in the blogosphere, much like in Life, one must give love to get love. You really do get back what you give out and in this venue I am about as generous as a frozen stone. I don't do much commenting on other blogs, which is far and away the best way to generate traffic. Too busy trying to read them all and compose my own posts in my limited time, I guess. Since I have a day job (OK -- evening, actually), my chances of having the free time to do enough research and composition to become the go-to blog on some emerging hot topic hover somewhere between nil and oblivion. Blogging is hard work.

So, until further notice, I sign off with my favorite literary quote from Walt Whitman's epic poem "Song of Myself" from the 1856 edition of Leaves of Grass (of "Look for me under your bootsoles" fame). Later editions put a period after the last word, in fact they added all the requisite commas at the ends of lines and periods after stanzas and other such "proper" following of poetic rules, too. Which is why I love the version from the earlier edition so much. A period is too final and not in keeping with the openness and rebellion embedded in the sentiment. I tried to find the exact version on the web, but only the punctutation-laden late versions seem to be out there. This is from memory:

Failing to fetch me at first keep encouraged
Missing me one place search another
I stop somewhere waiting for you