Monday, December 12, 2016

Please, tell me to go to hell!

Hundreds of page hits per day—day after day—month after month—year after year—127 so far today alone! But not a single comment! Are my posts that dull?—that irrelevant?—that unengaging? Perhaps they are! Yes, it's quite possible... I freely admit it... in fact, that is my guess...
Perhaps I ought to offer a strident opinion on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict—would that help matters?
Yes, let's talk politics: Should I pick a side on the corporate duopoly and viciously condemn one or the other of their champions? Would that do it?
Please, tell me to go to hell!—that would be preferable to this unnerving silence!
Or is it that all these thousands of hits are merely the ghostly traces of hackers and internet bots? But even this cannot be an excuse—even an automated reply would be welcome—perhaps an "out of office" message...

Thank you in advance,

Your humble servant,
~ B.F. Späth

5 comments:

  1. If it's any consolation, I think that's the way it's been going. The blogosphere is going out of fashion except for politics it seems.

    On the do as you would be done by principle, I've rather refrained from commenting on others' blogs myself to save them the trouble of acknowledgement, because when I look at my responses to people's comments on my blog I now delete most of them as valueless guff done out of gratitude so I'm glad not to get the comments now. Perhaps this comment too is valueless, but I would like to quote this from the excellent Jonathan Meades (you can see him on his TV programmes on YouTube):

    “Régis Jauffret got it right when he said that he was disgusted by writers who think of their readers.”

    This being part of a rant against cliché and the reduction of discourse to that which is designed to provoke the reader's agreement, or perhaps disagreement. The whole business of treating writing (or painting, or television, when one is on the creative side) as just another piece of merchandise, or just another bit of virtue-signalling, or popularity-seeking.

    When the task before us is to discover our own uniqueness and thus grow in our own selves.

    And as for your labels, yes, I get the satiric intent. These banal topics have swamped the cybersphere and made it into a level below pornography.

    You are fortunate to have no comments. You therefore owe nothing to anyone. Go your own way in defiance is my advice. I think I've decided to just write emails to people or to my own self, so to speak, when the urge to write hits.

    See how valueless it is to have a comment? I did think of commenting on your last.

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    Replies
    1. Ah! Very nice to hear from you, Vincent, as always. I'm pondering your comment and find my own opinions to be as vague, ambivalent, and confused as ever (which is fine). Yes, I think that blogging may have peaked and is on the decline—but perhaps it isn't. We keep hearing about the "death of print", and according to various sources and statistics, it appears to be quite healthy.
      But let me say that I value people's comments on my writing—it is a revelation every time. Every review, or even casual remark about my book helps me to understand myself better and to get fresh insights. So, I don't think we can grow and develop in isolation—after all, writing is communication.
      However, I can appreciate your viewpoint about the banality of having to respond to comments.
      But, the bottom line is that I have determined that all of this "traffic" that I'm getting, is indeed automated spam/bot/hacker electronic garbage!
      Thanks for your comment!

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  2. I've often felt that the interval between writing a comment and having it approved by the blog owner is in itself a turn-off. Particularly if I write a comment and then have second thoughts, wanting to amend or delete. But while it's in limbo, or purgatory, I can't do either. So I've taken the view that anyone can write any comment and if I don't like it, I can simply delete it. (If I know the person I can write and explain, as happened recently on mine.)

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  3. Just stumbled here while looking to see whether there is anything new on Pessoa's Book of Disquiet. After reading that post of yours I just jumped to your last available post and found your cri de coeur.

    It is essential to persevere. The divinity or the absurd and all that...

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    Replies
    1. Thank you for your comment! It is like oxygen to me!
      I have migrated over here:
      https://bfspath.com/
      This is my author page/blog, etc.

      Delete