Illusions about Blogging

There is the real world and there is the world as we see it. The wider the variation between the two the more lost to sanity is the concerned person. Everyone is less than completely sane, as far as I know, but if I am typical of a blogger then bloggers are less sane than the rest of the world.

The idea that I am typical of any group of people is risible to most people who know me. In fact, all I have to do is to call myself typical of a group of people to make that group rise up in wrath and commit mayhem on my body. “We may be mad but, boy, as mad as you? Yetch!!” is the war cry!

So, take this piece to mean only my illusions about blogging. Mine may be a miserable life but I still love it and would not want it cut short in its prime…errr…a shade past its prime, if you insist!

I have already talked of the fact that one of my illusions is already gone. I expected the brilliance of my writing genius to shine like a sun and draw readers like moths to a fire. Now I have come to realize that, even if the Internet is transparent, the boundaries of a blog are opaque to the light of my genius and, thus, one needs to go out and invite people into your blog first. Bloggers and Blog readers are, by and large, a shy lot and disdain walking into someone’s blog uninvited!

It is nevertheless a fact that other illusions still persist. I am still under the illusion that one who comes to my blog stays there because he is enthralled and not because he only wants me to return the favor. Like Yudhishtir is supposed to have said in the Yakshaprashnam, “The biggest wonder of the world is that even though men see others dying around them every day, they comport themselves as though they are immortal”, one could say of Bloggers, ‘Even though they see people visit blogs merely because they expect visits in return, they think that their own blogs are visited to be read and enjoyed”. To be fair to my readers I must say that all of them come to read and enjoy my writing. If you think it is an illusion, so be it, I do not want to know of it!

To let you know how far gone I am in this illusion, I even think that they would like to read more of me if only it were more conveniently presented. I have backed that illusion with action (and, if only you knew how much I hated work, you would realize how strong my illusion is). I have ended up indexing my blog and the tabs that you see on top of my blog page will take you to the list of pieces I have written under various categories – and each item on those lists will take you to the concerned piece when clicked upon!

And, I do not want to know how distant the world I see is from the real world!