Okay, okay, okay

I know for a fact that almost no one cares about it, but I thought I should try this once again.
The reason I had stopped is because no one was reading anything. Then I realized that almost no one in the "blogosphere" reads, actually, very much of anything that anyone writes in the "blogosphere" very carefully or closely, unless that person is famous... or unless the writer's opinion either sharply contrasts or sharply mirrors their own views. The former type of blog they can get openly angry at, and the latter they can have a big circle-jerk around. I'm very sorry to state this, but you know it's true.

I did occasionally ask a couple of people what they thought of what I was doing. They told me my entries were too long, or that I didn't have enough links within the postings themselves. Things like that. The length thing I didn't understand, because a blog, obviously, is something one can easily come back to, and repeatedly. Were they only commenting on format? Like they'd be more comfortable in reading it if only the lengthier things were divided over several days? Hm.

The comments about linkages were an indication, I think, that I wasn't interested in showing how "on top of things" and "with it" I am. The length thing I can do something about. I'm not sure what to do about the other, because I'd rather write than spend that time hunting for things I could be certain anyone would care about. But, okay, perhaps I will try to do both. Perhaps.

I wasn't so much interested in demonstrating how much I know about current events as I was in being entertaining and/or funny about one topic at a time, and about something I could be reasonably certain I had thought about. Also, I reasoned that typing about my personal opinions in a "rant" manner would be a little useless, mainly because there's nothing at all unusual in doing things that way, especially now that so many people are doing this. Usually. Right?

Also, I felt that what was at stake politically, "culturally" (sorry to use that now over-used word), and so on, in the world, was much too serious to be too overtly and glibly serious about, if you see what I mean. People on either side of political arguments are often expert in mocking the earnestness of the side they disagree with, seeing these gut feelings as pretentions. Well, sometimes they are. On both sides, I'm afraid to say.

These intense differences of opinion aren't solving anything. Are they? Make fun of this, if you wish to (or, more likely, ignore it), but the Left, I've come to feel, is becoming just as bad at changing people's minds as the Right almost certainly is (unless they resort to arguments based entirely on fear, of course), and liberal types are guilty of losing important contests. One can easily feel that a lot of "progressive" sorts aren't really interested in persuasion as they are in supporting each other's opinions.

It's okay to preach to those who you think are as yourself in their own thinking, but when a particular issue being struggled with is a life-or-death matter, wouldn't the more useful goal, or at least as useful a goal, would be to find ways to change people's minds? Never mind if you feel that Right-wing radicals use nasty arguments and spiteful tactics. If someone bothered by how things are going is interested in using the same tactics, then how dirty is someone willing to go with it?

Anyway, I'll take another whack at this blogging matter, but I need to change one or two things in the look of it. Thank you for reading this far.