Post #51: What Now?

20 July 2023

Three months and fifty posts into our journey, over 500 different visitors have stopped by for a little over 1200 sessions in total. (My readers may be a special, even a unique lot, but that has nothing to do with being counted only once. Such is the debasement of the language that the distinction would probably be lost on the Wixers even if I pointed it out to them. They did not even have the wits to check the meaning of their name in German—and that’s an Israeli company we are talking about. Not encouraging, so far as the bigger picture goes.) The average reading time is still holding up nicely at around 12 minutes, and the book version of the first forty posts is on its way (expect it around early August on Amazon). So far so good. But now what? I’m asking because I’m not sure myself.

The single-minded writer’s writer has his purist answer to give: expressing myself is something I need to, he will say—it’s the air I breathe, site or no site. Attracting a crowd of readers makes for great encouragement, no question, but whether there be few or many, it comes down to l’art pour l’art in the end, not to counting heads. Even a single serious reader matters more than a herd of casual clickers, and if some kind of measurement had to be done, it would need to focus on a measure that captures the quality of engagement—the reading time spent, for example, as opposed to the view count. Very well. But not many are artists in quite this strict sense, and nobody is so all the time. It may present itself as an ideal, but it is also a defensive position for the obscure to retreat behind because the more forward positions aren’t holding up for them very well. Find no reasons, tell yourself that it doesn’t matter, that kind of thing…

Next the meditator steps up to declare that he is doing no more than his bit to spread the Dhamma. My responsibility, he insists, is merely to share whatever insights and relevant experiences I have arrived at, for what little they are worth. The fruits of my actions are not up to me, and it would be a mistake to concern myself with them at all; not only should they not be anticipated, they must be actively renounced! Thus Gandhi on the essence of the Gita (Post #47), and many equivalent formulations in other traditions. Ora et labora—pray and work—and leave the rest to God (or the gods), or the divine law, or the Dhamma, or whatever name you prefer to give to the higher principles and powers that are (or are not) ruling our lives behind the scenes.

Then along comes a worldlier and less exalted voice: “All this trouble for a handful readers a day?” he crows. “You gotta be kidding! Either you get this thing to pick up a little more steam or fuggedaboudit!” A peevish voice, to be sure, that is better not given too much attention. Even if there were something to these gripes, what do they help? Aggressive self-promotion or chasing trends just isn’t my thing, and competing in today’s internet bazaar with wares as old-fashioned as mine—it all seems about as promising, frankly, as showing up to a cocaine party with a plate of unseasoned carrots and chopped celery sticks. A few guests may appreciate the hearty wholesomeness of such fare, but you can’t hope to be the life of the party if you don’t bring something with a lot more kick.

Now the confirmed melancholic with a foot in all three camps will remind us that we live in a fallen world—or one driven by Dukkha—so that frustration and failure are to be expected from anything we do in life. So be glad that you have any readers at all, bucko, and that you’ve been spared the hate mail (so far)! There’s no point in getting depressed so early in the game, when the real fun hasn’t even started. Things will likely get worse before they get better, possibly much worse, so you might as well enjoy your remaining days of relative tranquility. If you are still foolish enough to be asking for more, then you clearly haven’t understood the first thing: repeat the lesson, class clown, or better yet, the entire year.

Last not least, an adherent to the Miller-Bukowski school—what I’ve called the Zen of the gutter, see Post #6,* lately given a lease on life by Mr Manson (not the serial killer, the other one)—strolls past, whistling a merry tune with a beer can in one hand a bong in the other, to laugh at our question and dismiss it as ridiculous. Do whatever you want, he shrugs, and have what fun you can while you can, because nothing really matters anyway, and certainly nothing you could do would make much of a difference. Duh. (The fact that Messrs. Miller, Bukowski, and Manson all have records of doing rather well by their mantra of not giving a fuck doesn’t weaken their argument but strengthens it: if the world really were organized to favor the true, the good, and the beautiful, then why would the vulgarians rise to the top—the very heroes of Mount Flushmore? We have before us some veritable titans in the high art of low rolling, after all: Miller at his best writing like an angel doing the butterfly in the Cloaka Maxima, Bukowski being always good for a belchy laugh, if not much else (by his own profession), and Manson passing for nothing short of a millennial Socrates with people under thirty-five.

So where does that leave me, yours truly, the forlorn author and convener? I can see plenty of truth in all five angles, it turns out—but as soon as I admit as much, a sixth voice shouts from somewhere that these perspectives are quite incompatible with each other and cannot therefore all be true! Upon which the sage old rabbi in the corner gravely nods his grizzled head in agreement and declares with the all the authority of Talmudic wisdom that all six voices are right…

And the readers, where are they in all this? Isn’t the site directed at them, since, if the author really wanted to write for art’s sake alone (as some have lamely alleged), then surely he could do it in the quiet of his study without bothering anyone else about it! So, what do you think of the human tale before us, ever full of sound and fury, told by an idiot, and signifying nothing? Or was the Bard wrong?

Should the numbers matter, and if so, which numbers? Should the motley fool presiding over the show keep posting his questionable productions, and if so, what attitude should he take towards his own labors? Does any of it really matter, either day-to-day or in any other sense—the posts, the meditation, the Dhamma, life, the universe, anything at all—and if not, does even that summary verdict matter in the least? Is it all just a cosmic joke, and if so, is it the funny kind, the tragicomic, or perhaps the gallows variety? So many questions, so few answers…

(Again, this was an invitation to discussion, but it failed. Oh well.)