The Barnum Effect

When I recently mentioned to a friend that I'd resumed blogging he asked me what I was doing to promote the blog. Nothing, I said, I was really just writing it for writing's sake, and I didn't think blogging was particularly fashionable in these days of the twitter ascendancy. We then had a little discussion about popular blogs - I said the trick was to write something that other people were interested in, hence the successful blogs out there on the subject of weddings, interior design, etc. I tend to write about what is happening in my mental space, or about things that interest me. Just very occasionally something that interests me happens to be interesting to other people too. One of my most popular blog entries to date is  Stretch Yawn Faint , it is also (at the time of writing) the top google result for that three word search. Apparently "orthostatic hypotension" is a relatively un-discussed side effect of humans being big stretchy blobs of flesh.

A blank page and a flashing cursor that itches and scritches at the psyche, begging to be booted along the page and be displaced by the developing prose. So I sit here trying to oblige, yet somewhat at a loss as to what should come next. I drift forward in time, moored by my minor hobbies, commitments to family and friends, the toil that pays the bills, and the drudgery of domestic chores. It isn't a bleak existence. It is mildly pleasant and satisfying. A low stress, low risk strategy which will carefully transport me from here to eternity. What about the paths untraveled? The adventures I could have? I could be and do so much more. Why don't I? When did I change my outlook and set my sights so low? I do know the answers to those questions. I am where I am, doing what I do by conscious choice. Divorce and disease. These two daemons brought on my bunker mentality. I've chosen my current location and path. Safety. Security. Comfort. Routine. But what if I were to s