Meta

More and more, I find myself citing this very blog when various subjects come up for conversation in my day to day life. I don't have the objective of promoting myself. I have no thought of trying to shoehorn the name of it in where it's not called for. I don't believe in that kind of hustling, where some seedy guy is seizing on every flimsy reason why you might want to buy the watch he's selling. What does success look like with tactics like that? The ones that get away are turned off and spread that by word of mouth, and so do the ones you reel in. Promotion is something about which I'm apprehensive, and a fear that I'll come off like that is a major reason. Even so, I find myself bringing up the blog consistently, and purely in an organic nature. Other times, it's mentioned by someone else. In either case, I try not to push it. I talk about what I'm doing in the way and to the extent that the situation calls for.

This happened fairly recently. I don't remember what the impetus was for introducing my little pride and joy into the conversation. It might have been me or someone else in the car which was carrying myself and three others away from a friend's musical performance at a university campus event. I always support a friend when I can, and there were other reasons to come as well. I've been absent from some of these particular people due to logistical circumstances, and I hate that. I also have long wanted to take a look at the campus of this university, as I had considered it during high school and wound up elsewhere. It had looked like an outstanding school, and I recall salivating over the facilities described and pictured in brochures which the guidance center then furnished. As a rule I don't care for looking back, but I did like the idea of going to a part of town I never have occasion to visit and looking around. There was plenty to see.

Maybe exposure to that creative expression from my friend's performance got me excited about what I was up to. In any case, suddenly that's what we were talking about, and I was of course delighted. Mainly it seemed that it was an excellent chance for some real feedback, which is scarcer even than readership. People mainly belong to the 'Silent Majority' which plagued Nixon. They read the blog posts, and keep their thoughts and feelings about it to themselves. That makes it tougher. Here was a chance to hear face to face what someone thought. The one friend who has read the blog spoke at length, and I was listening carefully. I always take criticism and input most seriously, because there's always something there. By my nature, I think I may sound as if I brush off the negative words that come from others, whatever they may be regarding. I hate to be wrong, but I know well enough when I am, so always on the inside I'm receiving regardless of my verbal retorts.

I guess that what was said between he and I made the blog sound appealing, as a third vehicle occupant expressed a need to check it out for herself. It may have been an attempt to bring the line of discussion to a close, as the two of us had been monopolizing the attention of the car to the exclusion of this third person and the fourth. I won't be so skeptical, however. I was very pleased by the idea that my feeble little following might have just grown by one. I doubt whether I'll get to the promised land with tactics like that, but I feel like I'm building a cadre that will function something like the remains of the American population described by Dr. Strangelove: just a handful of people working around the clock to turn a few into millions.