Identity Crisis – A Journey Within

“There is a joy for every hurt”

sings Marko Saaresto with Poets of the Fall in their song “Jealous Gods” from the album of the same name. This can be taken literally or figuratively. Today, I’ll choose the latter. I have these moments, now and again, when doubt is rather overpowering pushing me straight to the wall so much so that I cannot untangle myself from the chains that keep me locked down. So I write and rant…

Focus on the wrong things

The thing with writing a blog is that one is too focused on how many readers one gets, on the statistics and all that stuff. Since Misfit at Heart was created, I received a fair share of visitors, mostly anonymous from all over the world. People from countries that never knew about it before have graced my posts with their attention. Thank you for that! Among those, however, 29 spam were blocked and 1453 malicious login attempts stopped. What does it say about my blog? Well, it should not matter one bit, but today it does greatly annoy me. 

I am no expert in SEO-optimisation, keywords, and all that boring jargon. The result becomes evident, search engines mostly ignore my posts. It is said that one should visit other blogs to like and comment on their posts to get attention and therefore more visitors. Let me ask you something then: do musicians make music for other musicians? The answer’s no, of course not. So, why should bloggers write for other bloggers to come and visit? Ludicrous! The only comments I have received – without taking into accounts the ones I have transferred from my other blog – are spam. Keeping that in mind, all the new countries that have visited my blog recently are not really a victory now, are they. It just means that more spammers are coming my way. Yet again, maybe not and I might never know. It should not matter, but today – and for a few days since – it really does.

What’s important

I have to constantly remind myself of the reason behind my writing. I don’t need anybody’s confirmation or approval that what I write is meaningful, good and maybe a little entertaining; but then, if I did not need that at all, why would I bother sharing my writing through a blog? I could just write on a notebook for my eyes only, but I don’t. In the end, I am doing this to myself, don’t I. I choose to write for it is my joy, but the hurt of not being acknowledged or noticed the way I’d like sometimes overtakes the joy itself. Am I a hypocrite then? If this is affecting me so, do I really write solely for myself?  I mean would it bother me much if I did not publicize every post on social media, or are social media unavoidable if I want to be read? Here it is again, I want to be read, that much is clear and yet, I write for myself. I am a huge contradiction and a hypocrite. What do I do? What is the most important and how do I get it?

What is the most important indeed! I AM! Thank you Helen K.

Spread the joy

None of this matters, because I am the only important piece in the picture. This is one of the reasons I have slightly changed Misfit at Heart‘s logo. I am not a freelance writer, I never was. I’ve never made money out of my writing, but what I’ve gotten from it so far is so much more valuable. I’ve got freedom. I am a free thinker and a poet when I feel like it. I write so that I can breathe and breathe better when I write this is my slogan and it’s about time I embraced it. Writing is what I do so that I can show and be aware of who I am. I guess that the so-called need for attention and getting a wider readership is due to the fact that I am proud of myself and my accomplishments, and I cannot keep it to myself. After all, when you love someone that much (husband, wife, children…) you want the world to know about it, you want to spread the joy. There you go!