Sunday, April 18, 2010

Reflection...

Last week, I had a visitation by a spammer.   It must not have been a particularly skilled spammer in that he/she left comments on about 20 old articles of mine (where no one would probably read) in Chinese characters that most people would probably not be able to interpret on a blog where I can barely write and read English.  It offered links to what I presume was a porn portal (I couldn't read it but the pictures were pretty clear).

From being in the business, I know that what really did me this wrong was not a real person but a piece of software that someone is convinced will drive more traffic and revenue to some part of the internet.

Annoyed and tempted to leave the comments in place, I was sitting here this morning and decided to just go back and delete them.  While I was there, I glanced through what I'd written.  I think this was the first time I'd ever done that (just randomly leaf through my own blog).

I was surprised.

Having done this (blogged) for over  a year now, I have no illusions that what I'm creating here is great literature, great art or, great entertainment.  There are many more skilled and disciplined than I that do blogging better and more consistently.

On the other hand, some of what I've written was, well, worthwhile.  A few of my own articles brought me to tears as I thought back on where I was when I wrote them.  Some of them were more readable than I'd remembered them - they came off pretty well.

I guess I need to thank that spammer (person or software) and invite them back sometime.

5 comments:

Mary Christine said...

Going back and reading old stuff is an amazing thing. I have been doing a bit of it lately. And I agree that you have written some very good stuff.

Syd said...

I think that each of us can see where we have been and where we are now. I occasionally go back and read something that I've written, especially when I have a thought that I know has come up before about something program related. It is helpful to have labels so that I can find things again that center around a particular topic. Glad that you are here Ed.

Bobby said...

Thank you for your story. I often read some of the things I have written and wonder what state of mind I was in when I wrote it. It reminds us that we do have a unique perspective and it is worth listening to our own voice sometimes.

Nikki (Sarah) said...

I stumbled here and loved this post. Sarah

steveroni said...

Sometimes when I slink back to read a psat post of my own, I wind up thinking it must have been written by another--not me, heavens NO!

Glad YOU are back, Ed...thought YOU were on hiatus