Bloggers Anonymous

I think Blogging may, sometime in the future, be considered a drug. Blogging will come to be considered an addictive substance that will be regulated and banned. I think this based on a couple of my own datum.

First I noticed that my Blogging frequency rose dramatically when I was frustrated with my job. Even my Blog has a sub-title with a derivative of the word “cathartic”. First I declared to myself that I would only Blog “Sunday through Thursday”. Then, I started Blogging on weekends. Then I began to Blog everyday. My Blogging frequency increased in an inverse relationship with my happiness and self-importance at work. I even began to Blog alone, without others, and often without even a new idea, just statistics.

And then my friend Pundista stopped Blogging. At first I made on-line fun of her and ridiculed her anonymously for not Blogging. I had lost a fellow “user” and therefore she could no longer be in my links. I ostracized her by removing her from my “favorite links” sidebar. She indicated “when I Blog I spend all my weekends doing research and I become anti-social”. A sure indication of a Blogging problem.

Lately, I’ve stopped reading the über-blogger Robert Scoble’s blog Scobelizer. It’s because he’s temporarily checked out of blogging. He stated “I'm gonna take some time off, think more about what I want to do as a blogger, as an employee, as a husband, as a father, and come back fresh.” To find himself.

I remember in the 1970’s when cocaine was “a clean high”, “non-addictive” and “the rich person’s drug”. I also remember when Blogging had the benefit of being anonymous. All things trend toward closure and I am beginning to understand about this venue called Blogging.

I am going to create a new organization; Bloggers Anonymous. It’s credo will be:

The Twelve Steps of Bloggers Anonymous

1. We admitted we were powerless over blogging - that our lives had become unmanageable.
2. Came to believe that blogging, a power greater than ourselves, could not restore us to sanity.
3. Made a decision to turn our will and our lives to a power other than search engines and Adsense.
4. Made a fearless moral inventory of ourselves without search.
5. Admitted to Google, MSN, Yahoo and Technorati, the exact nature of our wrongs.
6. Were entirely ready to remove all the SEO engineering I have performed.
7. Humbly asked the Internet Search Gods to remove our blog search listings.
8. Made a list of all persons we had blogged about, and became willing to stop blogging about them all.
9. Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would cause the Digg Effect to their sites.
10. Continued to take personal notes and when we were wrong promptly admitted it.
11. Sought through work and time with our families, to improve our conscious contact with the Internet as we understood It, search only for knowledge of It’s will for us and the power to carry that out.
12. Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to bloggers and to practice these principles in all our affairs.