It does seem as though there may come a time in the very near future when closing down this blog will have been the best thing to do. The main thing I'd loathe about that is the zillions of posts that'd be lost (unless I painstakingly saved them all. I might save some! Hmmm). I'd miss not being able to post. I'd miss the fact that it's something I've been steadily doing since I was 14. I'd miss it all.
I was thinking about it, and being emo about it, and wondering if, closing it down for PR purposes would mean I was ashamed of it. I came to the conclusion that there is a difference between the way you are proud to portray yourself as an individual--Christian, Family-member, whatever--to people who more-or-less know you or your context, and the way that you would present yourself to people who are just being introduced to you for the first time. Maybe it's the sort of swing-around that happens as a result of suddenly finding yourself under the possibility of being googled by people.
I guess it's sort of like you oughtn't just talk off the top of your head to people you don't know. I would say something different to people who just met me for the first time. Not because I'd hide something or be less honest, but because I want them to understand. I want them to relate. I want to make sense to them.
I started off on this blog with no intention of being read by people I didn't know, or (just to prove how strange and Internet-ignorant I was) by people who weren't in the Family. Whereas I used to be sort of awkward and surprised when people I met for the first time would tell me they read my blog, I've sort of prepared my heart for it and realized that it's really a good thing.
Also, I've since realized, if I'm going to bother writing anything at all, I may as well write for as big an audience as I can. My Dad used to always say when I was a kid that if I was going to make music or write or do anything with one of my hobbies, that I ought to do it seriously and do something that could be used. I didn't often listen to him, because the unusable stuff--the stuff that just comes out and is unedited and untouched and yucky and messy--was the only stuff I really wanted to have anything to do with. You know how it is, being a lazy kid just trying to experiment. But I'm 20, dammit. I don't have as many excuses.
In so saying, I'm thinking about maintaining a presence on the Internet that is as purposeful and relatable as possible. Keeping it real, so that when people see or hear something with my name on it, they'll Google me and find something that explains who I am and what I'm doing, not just a bunch of rambling teenage thoughts. Agreed?
