What’s next for belikeme? I’ve sorta proved to myself that I can, on average, when not crushed by life events, maintain a weekly page about this or that. I’m almost up to 52 – a year’s worth of weekly writings, and as of this post I have almost another year’s worth of draft posts at various stages of completion. However, as stated in my marginalia, I am blogging with intention – to promote my humanitarian agenda. Thus, while blogging is one aspect of my hopes and dreams, it is not the only component, and of course trivial maunderings promote mainly my charisma, such as it is, rather than my goals. So, what are the components I’ve been thinking about?
Keep Blogging. I’ll try to keep on plodding my weary way, posting my pages Sunday mornings at eight. One of my ambitions is getting several posts scheduled, then taking a few weeks off. As it is now, I’m somewhat more likely to take a week off and then have to post two entries at once in order to maintain my average. As with today’s two posts. After a while I might do some kind of restrospective.
Upgrade Blogging. I keep having ideas about additional categories of blog post, such as one Wednesday a month posting some kind of culinary experiment, or even trying my hand at posting fiction. I have a couple of short story ideas and a novel idea, and I’ve even done a bit of experimenting with that material. I don’t want to be a writer per se – assuming I actually get around to posting fiction, I don’t have any related desires besides what I’ve already started toying with.
Videos. I’ve taken to watching several Youtube videos most nights. PBS Spacetime, Sabine Hossenfelder, Scott Manley, Paul Davids, and several others. The channels I watch regularly have a definite schtick going on, and I assume there are tricks of the trade that have them doing particular intro and outro scenes, and various gestures and idioms within the body of the video. There must be a list of these kinds of things that I could choose from in developing my own look and feel. I already have some ideas about making it unique, but these may turn out to be impractical. Perhaps my search phrase should be “how to make Youtube videos with a crappy phonecam and laptop mike”.
Data Science Projects. Somebody is wrong on the internet! I sometimes think it might be great to take a meme or claim or slogan that seems outrageous, track down some reliable data about it, and put everything together in a nice report, supporting or denouncing the meme. Having done this kind of thing professionally (data wrangling, not meme busting), I realize how much work it is, and unless I was getting paid actual money, it wouldn’t be worth it unless it was closely related to my aims, which involve making money. I can envision doing this, maybe, once a quarter. It could be a “Wednesday Post” along with any fiction or foodie stuff.
Promotion. Yuck. One topic I search on occasionally boils down to “Why doesn’t Google know my blog exists?”. There is lots of advice on how to get noticed, almost all of which involves the kind of self-promotion and semi-dishonesty that keeps me avoiding any kind of actual entrepreneurship or small business doings. I have to work my way into habits that I can compartmentalize away from my other activities.
Given my sloth and responsibilities, much of the above, is, naturally, aspirational. Still, without aspirations, respiration leads to nothing but pointless perspiration.