Happy Blog-iversary (to me)!

Believe it or not, I've been blogging for a full three years now...but don't look for confirmation of that in this blog's sidebar....here's the story so far...:

Three years ago I started blogging because I was a frustrated, unpublished writer whom everybody thought might end up like Emily Dickinson (only in black) if I didn't do something about it. My personal blog--which ended up getting stalked by two individuals--was shut down just this past summer. Mostly because I wasn't free to write what I wanted about my life anymore without *someone* *somewhere* getting really pissed off at me...

But I accomplished far more than I thought I could in three years.

No, I never published a book. But I did manage to create something that has, IMO, just as much value: influence....(and a seriously tiny career in new media)

and it's been an amazing journey...

Which has gone something like this: I wrote stuff about my life (sometimes graphically and rather personally) and made a bunch of friends.

I then made a bunch of friends in High Places because I went to some conferences. I asked for press passes to conferences, and got them (oddly.)

I started another blog (this one) because someone said that my personal blog wouldn't fit in his blogroll, but if I did something else, he might include me. Which he did.

Then, somewhere, somehow, I got a contract writing for something Corante was doing--and I'm still really not sure how that happened. Maybe it had something to do with showing up at some really small conferences where there were a bunch of Heavy Thinkers.

Then again, maybe it was my writing.

I kinda had a tough time with blogging for a network, because nobody had expected me to actually *blog* for someone else--and get paid for it. And doing something for someone else always requires following rules.

Which I'm not real good at. And sometimes forget to ask for help to understand the rules...

I kept going to conferences--I went to tech conferences and marketing conferences and journalism conferences. And I met a lot more really cool people.

A lot of really interesting and cool people. Many of whom are my Facebook friends and who remember me when I see them.

And I got to speak at some of the conferences I went to...

Think I got there with some help from my Friends...:-)

I then got to write for the Huffington Post,
and there were some other things...
I worked on Assignment Zero...
and helped out with We Media Miami...

And I kept writing. and that pissed some people off.
but everybody can't love me.
and sometimes I genuinely disagree with people,
even if I like them IRL,
and I'm not going to not tell them that every utterance is a great idea.

That wouldn't be me. Even if that's what they want to hear.

Truth to Power? Maybe...

Then some other people *really* started to take me seriously. Maybe it's because I say things that make sense--because I understand people in This Space.

Maybe, again, it was my writing.

But I have a little trouble merging This Space and IRL. It's that Rules thing, I think.

It's part of why I started blogging in the first place--because I just didn't get IRL and I felt people didn't take me seriously IRL. And weren't going to make a space for me IRL.

But IRL still impacts this space, and I'm learning a lot about IRL these days.

That's why I haven't been blogging so much these days. Trying to adjust to a certain synthesis between IRL and This Space and how it all might work to create money...

I've always seen This Space as a space of Ideas. Community. and Creativity. A Gathering-Place of people--some disaffected, some looking for a new "home." Some have drawn the analogy between the Internet and the Wild West--and in many ways, they're right. Not because it's lawless, but because it's generative and creative, where some of us can grow and become something that the mass media world we were born into wasn't going to allow us to become.

The mass media world grew too many gatekeepers with too many rules that kept way too many of us feeling as if we'd never Become....that we'd only be Also Rans...dead cut flowers in the bud phase...

And some of us just weren't meant to be Also Rans... or pretty unopened buds...even if we can't get with The Rules...

Maybe there are just too many of the wrong rules, and too many gatekeepers worrying too much about illusions of control...

But are we in a space where our wildest dreams really can come true?

Perhaps we should be careful what we dream about...
when we're in here.
Maybe the "walls" have ears...
and they talk back...

Perhaps you'd agree, it's been a fascinating three years....

Who knew?
I didn't.

Who knows?
I don't--that's for sure....I'm just here for the next destination...