The affected “virtual me” identity that I created for myself serves very little purpose. It doesn’t help me build business. There is so much stuff on here (this site) that I don’t even agree with anymore. It feels like I’m stuck.
I am stuck.
I need to burn it down, start again. The thing about the internet (life, really) is that you can be whoever you want to/say you are. Paul Ryan runs a sub 3 and climbs the peaks.
At one point I had a bit of traffic here. Measured in the hundreds a day, most days about 1k visits (real people…the bot number is absurd…for some reason the bots love a few of my GTD posts). I don’t anymore. I have more money, influence, power, whatever…now than I did when I had a bunch of strangers commenting on random blog posts. I sort of miss it. I sort of don’t.
Online, I have this need to do something. Shake things up, show up and transform things. I don’t (always) care if the change is positive. I just have to push/meddle/instigate. I can’t not. I see something that’s wrong and I can’t help myself. I see someone that’s not closing, and I’ve gotta fix it.
I have to introduce people – even if they don’t ask.
I have to comment, etc. I can’t help myself.
Bernard Shaw called it the “Life Force,” and it’s some sort of lunatic wanderlust. I have to meddle, instigate, move. There’s some sort of anarchist inside of me.
But here, on this blog, I have had nothing to say for months. It’s not as if I haven’t been busy, and it’s certainly not as if I haven’t been writing – my job – and my pet projects – keep me plenty busy.
It’s just that it there’s something affected about ‘GenuineChris’. My online identity. So I’ll move to a new one (like @jeffturner did). But will it be another affectation? If I put too much time into it, is it me? Does any of this shit even matter?
…
I see all of these bloggers (with nice looking blogs that are attended by job seekers that feel the pressure to actually be their own business owners).
What next? I don’t really know. There’s a certain amount of ridiculousness that we have in living a life online with something of a permanent record. I don’t want affect – I want contribution, I want empathy, I want to be able to help loads of people. I’m able to, I’m not seeing this as a delusion, I have insight that a lot of people just lack.
This is the personal site of Chris Johnson where we blog about entrepreneurship, dealing with emotion and sales. And anything else moderately to majorly interesting. You can subscribe in the box below.
