It’s interesting to run into an article about the deeper mindset, truth shared by a bloggger him or herself. Usually the established bloggers don’t show their inner thoughts, while focusing on professional, educational contributions through their posts. But in my case, for being a developer yet to be grown to become truly professional who can contribute significantly, it’s not easy to make regular posts. I wrote about “Why it’s hard for me to blog frequently“ previously and this article by Mr. Truant seems to recognize the beneficial effect of opening up oneself to the readers.

The problem with most blogs and most bloggers is that they’re playing it safe. They’re just “reporting” on things, playing by the rules of what a person should and shouldn’t say in public. If you can buck that trend and talk about what others are feeling but won’t admit, you’ll draw a reaction. Opening up, especially when it’s uncomfortable, will get you more comments.

I guess people often feel difficult to comment on the superior post which may not need any addition or editing. But if the post is about inadequacy of incompleteness of the author or the subject matters, it becomes much easier to add to or edit the inferior post by commenting. Identifying this idea, Mr. Truant listed how to get more comments:

1. Think of something that you feel or that is bothering/affecting you, but which you are reluctant to talk about.
2. Ask yourself if other people are likely to identify with it or to feel the same thing, but are similarly reluctant to admit it. There’s little point to confessing to something that only you feel. (So for instance, perhaps you have a deep desire to rub yourself with rats. It seems unlikely that others will share this desire. But maybe that’s me. Maybe I’m out of touch.)
3. Make your confession, showing yourself in full, naked glory.
4. Watch the comments roll in.

This works because everyone has foibles, but most people are too preoccupied with looking “correct” or “professional” to discuss them. By finding and talking about these “elephant in the room” topics, you’re being brave on behalf of your readers. You’re being the first person to say what everyone is thinking, but which everyone is afraid to admit. You’re giving them permission to feel the same way, to discuss it, to admit it in kind.

While it’s important in blogging to be able to guide and contribute by sharing special knowledge or providing better solutions to the problems, sometimes it’s meaningful to connect with the readers by having the vulnerable communication, making oneself seemingly weaker. Amazingly, people don’t easily attack or slander the humble and  sincere blogger.

But what people really want, I think, is a friend. Not some know-it-all who pretends to like you just so he can make a sale, but a living, breathing human being who is just as screwed up as you are and isn’t afraid to admit it.

Melted Ice Cream from DisplayFakeFoods

For many days, I had been seriously considering to register a domain for my web development. Finally, after many days of speculation, I had come up with almost perfect domain name. It was about two weeks ago. At the time, registration for one year was priced about $7.99. However, because of my personal reason, I hesitated to obtain it thinking there might be better options. I was wrong. And now it costs about $59.99 for one year.

I couldn’t understand what happened to me. The price that I saw about two weeks ago was sale price and I didn’t know well about the price difference in registering .at, an Austrian domain. In other words, I wasn’t fully informed about domain pricing and business. I can’t help but still thinking what if I didn’t hesitate to register the domain at the moment of conceiving the domain name.

Another lesson I learned is about the danger of procrastination. My hosting company sent me an email about its affiliate program offering $10 for putting the banner linked to its website. Not reading the details of the email, I thought about doing it a few days later. But the email offer was valid only for 3 days. Noticing how easy it was like notifying the hosting company that I put the banner in my website, I was embarrassed to ignore the value of $10 which can be used for supporting my hosting charges. Lost the easy money.

Here I would like to stress the reasons why hesitation or procrastination is ALWAYS BAD:

It happens because one is not informed enough.

Due to having narrow viewpoint or stereotypical idea, one cannot act even though the decision to do it needs to be made as soon as possible to progress the task.

It cannot be replaced by better activities.

To be honest, I cannot confidently say I always did something better or meaningful things while in the state of hesitation of procrastination.

You cannot expect the future.

Accidents happen and the remaining time becomes so much shorter than anticipated.Often it’s caused by other factors, but blaming them is not the right excuse for lack of preparing for accidents.

It leads to abandoning the initial plan.

Unless I had the strong need and will to obtain the domain name before it was too late, I would’ve abandoned my plan for developing a web service. It frightens me how shameful and regretful it could be.

It is not a good thing to talk about.

Almost nobody wants to hear about the reasons or excuses for hesitation or procrastination state. The professionals working together will definitely think negatively about the one who is mindlessly talking about what he or she could do if he or she had enough time but didn’t.

Does anyone think differently? What’s differences between hesitation and procrastination? What are your experiences? Can anyone likes to suggest links?

Picture: "Keep Thinking" from thinkinTub

Examining myself very closely, my recent difficulty in blogging is not because I am a total recluse who doesn’t like to share with anyone about anything. Or I can make it worse by labeling myself as a lazy person, but it’s not actually true considering what’s going on in my mind. I do have some topics in mind, but somehow it’s just not as easy to share them with the public as I thought it would. It seems to be a methodical, or a situational problem which I must learn to deal with using the solutions from the experienced bloggers and developers. There are what I suspect to be reasons or excuses for my lack of blogging.

Preoccupied in doing a project. But it’s not ready to be opened and shared yet.

• Because I want to keep it as a secret.
• Still the project in the conceptualizing phase which is still too abstract even to myself.
• Waiting for internal and external encouragement on this, to solidify confidence in the project.

I guess this waiting is the major cause preventing me from actual progression. Also, without opening the minimum information about the project, how can I expect to learn anything from the experienced developers whom I can meet and interact through blogging? I must learn to present and communicate well with the experienced developers.

I am not tuned to the current events.

• Not because I intentionally ignore them, but simply I just want to distinguish facts from opinions and it’s taking some time.
• Due to my lack of professional insight, what I can blog about current events is only the repetition of what’s already there with a little bit of my simple thoughts. It’s not a real contribution in my measure.

To gain more professional and unique insight, it would take a lot of reading and speculating, challenging me to build and re-build knowledge basis. This task must be taken quite seriously and I need find the right way to do it.

I need to have more reading and watching to expand my knowledge and imaginations, which cannot be limited in web browsing.

• Embarrassingly, I began to understand the need to have more various activities including something entirely different from or even against one’s field of study, in my case it’s Computer Science.
• Narrowed perspective, intentionally or unintentionally gained prevent one from developing and sharing his or her experiences or thoughts with others.

I am thinking about having more knowledge in film making, English learning, Bible study, social servitude, and unknown other possibilities. The additional solution is to meet more people from various interests. Though I don’t neglect the value of socializing, it’s been hard for me to be more proactive.

Not utilizing the notes in my journal.

• As a proof for not being lazy, I’ve been keeping journals. However, almost none of the notes are used in blogging. Because of excessive filtering not to jeopardize my private notes, my record keeping has contributed so little for my blogging.
• But most of all, I think it’s lack of confidence in my notes that prevented me to review them more carefully to find the value.

The worst thing that I found while writing this blog, blogging infrequency is the consequence of not following the plan as it is scheduled. Procrastination is the worst kind of enemy for developers and bloggers like myself. It’s not only about unable to do something, but also about taking away the opportunity to do something else, possibly better and more important thing.

And I must free myself from fear of not becoming a responsible contributor. Accepting my current status of being a student of life and knowledge without any set date for graduation, must not be ashamed of utilizing the resources from others especially the open information and I must understand that mature blogging experience require so many trials and error.

In conclusion, not only for my blogging but also for other activities, I must embrace beauty of making mistakes and learning from these valuable experiences.

UPDATE(2009/08/04 16:31) Found a good article related to this blogging problem. [CopyBlogger] The Most Horrible Blog Post Ever