And so it is done. I just put a figurative machete through the posterous account I have been fooling with for the last several weeks. It was an experiment of sorts - to cross-post my written thoughts across the most popular blog platforms simultaneously.
In response to my words appearing everywhere - WordPress, Posterous, Blogger, LiveJournal, Tumblr, and more - nothing really happened. It was quite amusing really.
I talked earlier this evening with a close online friend about the future of my personal blog; about the apparent futility of it all. While away over the past week walking in the Cumbrian hills, I wrote each evening in a notebook. It was a revelation of sorts. All the self imposed shackles of writing in this public forum were removed.
Almost every word I share in public is filtered these days - I don’t mention the children in too much detail any more, I certainly don’t mention their friends, and I don’t refer to family, or work.
What’s left? Me. Abstract thoughts. If the most interesting subjects are people, then I have very little left to share. I’m sure “myself” isn’t much of a well to draw water from either.
A voice on one shoulder tells me to close the book. A voice on the other tells me that although now few, the friends I continue to share thoughts with are too valuable to cast adrift so easily.
Perhaps I owe it to everybody that has read in the past, and that might read this now to sit on my hands for a few more months. I need somebody to put a big sticky label over the “Delete” button, labelled “DO NOT PRESS”…