These young people are going to change the world
Recently I was invited to give another talk to the Raleigh Digital Connectors and I delivered that talk tonight to a roomful of attentive young people at the St. Monica’s Teen Center. My experiences with blogging was again the topic of conversation, so I spent about 45 minutes going over the highlights (and some of the lowlights) of my twelve years of blogging experience.
It’s hard to boil down so many different posts over so many different years so I mentioned some of the posts that got noticed or those that mean a lot to me. I also had fun comparing blogging to Facebook and trying to show that they’re not the same.
Given a little more time, I would have mentioned a few other things, too. Near the conclusion, I was trying to make a point about how I speak my mind here and if you find what I say to offend you then it’s your fault. If you come into my proverbial home, don’t be shocked when you find me being myself. Many of my friends and family find agreement with things I write and many do not. That doesn’t bother me because I feel obligated to the world to always call ’em like I see ’em, regardless of whether my opinions are popular or not. I hope I’ve demonstrated that characteristic throughout my years as a blogger.
That’s what I was trying to convey, anyway. In the excitement of the talk I tend to trip over my words and sometimes mangle my point. 🙂
The other part of that is that there have been a few cases where one of my friends had been on the opposite side of an issue but after reading my thoughts on the topic they had changed their mind. Those times are especially rewarding as a blogger since they showed that people may assume you think a certain way but if you have a forum in which you can share your views, they might not only realized they misjudged you, they might even decide they agree with you. Pretty cool when it happens.
Bradley Upchurch, who leads the program, asked if there were examples where I’ve used my blog (to paraphrase) “for good,” as in helped rally around a cause. I hadn’t thought of any good examples at the time, but one that popped into my head was the time I wrote about the untimely death of an acquaintance of mine, Leah Kubick. Leah was a geek and a blogger like me and better known by her online handle of Heinous. Anyway, my post was very brief but it somehow caught the eye of Leah’s mother. She posted a very nice comment on the post thanking me for remembering her daughter. It wasn’t a revolution or any big movement but I’m happy if I helped ease someone’s pain.
Blogging is what you make it. Everyone is different and everyone has something to say. There are no real rules here. Just post what you feel like posting, be yourself, and trust that you’ll find your audience.