With my last post I reached a milestone. You could now read one of my posts each day and have it take you a full year to get through them all. That is something I am not sure I ever imagined would happen when I started blogging a few years ago, but I suppose it is rather neat. When I started I did it because I thought it would be a nice opportunity to share my thoughts on a few things. I had no specific expectation as to how many people would read it, or even that anyone would read it. I was not very good a self-promotion then, nor am I now. Very rarely do I volunteer the information that I have a blog. Yet, it gets found and people do read it. In the world of blogs, mine is pretty insignificant. Some blogs have millions of followers and tens of millions of visits all time. My blog is followed by just under 100 people–many of whom I do not even know–and has received about 16,500 visits in all, with a single-day high of 204 visits. Interestingly enough, the most viewed post all all so far has been Checking My Gig Line, actually a pretty short post. Yet it has more than 150 more views than the runner up. Most surprising to me is that my blog has been viewed by people in 84 different countries. True, 74 of those countries have fewer than ten views each, but it’s still kinda neat. Perhaps most significant is that the number of viewers and visits continues to increase each year. I suppose that means that people think that at least every once in a while I have something meaningful to say!
Ultimately, this is not about the views, viewers, followers, etc. To be perfectly honest with you, most of my blogging is just me thinking out loud, processing through my fingers on the keyboard something that I read, saw or have been thinking about. Rarely do I look at the stats. In fact, until looking at them to make this post I cannot remember when I looked at them last. And the reality is, in the world in which we live, there will continue to be plenty of things for me to blog about for the foreseeable future. There have been probably five or six things today, in fact, and I have not even had much time to look around or see what’s in the news. So, for now anyway, I’ll keep on writing. It’s good therapy for me if nothing else. And, when you feel so inclined, I thank you for reading. If, from time to time, I give you something to think about, challenge your thinking a bit or expose you to something for the first time, that will be a plus. I do not get many comments, and that’s okay. I suspect that those bloggers who get comments by the dozens either stop reading them or get worn out by them anyway. Still, if you have a comment or a thought to share sometime, please do. I may just lead to another post!
THINKING OUT LOUD 