Mind the Beginner

You know Darwin right? That guy who thought up the theory of evolution. Is he right or is he wrong? A continued debate that I fear will never end. We all have our own theories about evolution.

Theories cover everything in life. You think you know how (a part of) life works. There is a lot of theory on running a successful blog, making that illusive online income and in other areas like brewing your morning cup of coffee and the ideal line through a corner with a motorcycle. There is nothing in life that someone hasn’t developed a theory about. There is nothing in life that nobody preaches about.

Looking for theories

Internet is absolutely full of theories. Among the more popular are those about passive incomes, low-hour workweeks, location independence and rocking on the social media. These theories get written down in blogs and circulated through ebooks and membership sites. So these theories seem to be correct. You can generate an income this way or become a social media rockstar. Thousands of subscribers are proof of that.

Internet hasn’t always been here (Yes I know it’s shocking, what did all those people do with their time before the internet.) and so they had books and journals to publish their theories in. It actually still is the best place to look for good scientific theory backed by scientific research. I have more trust in something that is published in Nature than what is published on the Huffington Post. Likewise I have more trust in scientific papers than what you can read on Wikipedia. Last but not least books are better than blogs.

Theories are omnipresent. But they are just theories until you prove them.

Proving a theory

Going back to Darwin, will anyone ever be able to prove he was right? There is evidence everywhere around you, you just have to open your eyes. Or so you would think. There is enough out there that doesn’t conflict with Darwin’s theory, and so far nobody has come with a sound falsification, that is, something that shows Darwins theory on evolution is wrong.

A classic to show what I mean here is “All swans are white”, a very nice theory and in most parts of the world nobody has ever seen a swan that’s not white, excluding cygnets who are greyish but will turn white when they mature. If all swans are white, then what’s this:

Cygnus atratus

Let’s just ignore it and maybe it will go away. All swans are white! That’s how it works with most people, presented with clear proof that a theory is wrong they will persist in believing their theory. Even though this animal has a scientific name and everything. Feed it and it will come closer. Try to come to close  it’s offspring and it will attack you. “The truth hurts” gets a whole new meaning while you rush to hospital for stitches.

Critical Rationalism

Presenting theories and “proof” is what scientists try to do. Bloggers try to do the same, marketing people and sales people are even worse. Presenting all kinds of “proof” that what they are telling you actually works. Well, of course it works for them! They did it that way or at least say they did and now you’re eager to adopt the latest method and you’re sure that it will work for you too. But not all theories are as sound as Darwin’s.

Enter Karl Popper, a philosopher who lived in the 20th century. He rejected classical empiricism (knowledge through experiments) and suggested to think the other way round. Trying to prove a theory wrong instead of trying to prove it right.

The black swan is the perfect example, just one black swan will shoot down the theory that all swans are white. It’s your choice to look away or not.

Hitting yourself with a hammer will hurt. But how do you know that hitting yourself the next time will hurt as well? You can hit yourself to find out of course, that’s empirical proof that it did hurt. But to prove the next hit will hurt you’d have to hit yourself again. You won’t like where that’s going. The other way round, thinking like Popper you give the theory that hitting yourself with a hammer hurts and you challenge anyone to prove your theory wrong. At the very least it provides you with less discomfort.

Stepping on dreams

Being a critic isn’t a very rewarding, glorious job but someone has to do it. Especially when everyone is blinded by theories and promises of glory, riches or eternal life if only they follow a few simple rules that seem to have worked for whoever it is that makes the promises.

Should you stop dreaming? Of course not! Just keep reality in mind and try and poke holes in things that seem to good to be true. They always are.

Inspiration comes from the strangest places these days. I was reading a Terry Pratchett book “A hat full of sky” in wich a creature of sorts stalks a witch. It’s not able to die, not able to forget and not able to be unaware. It’s terrified of this world and just wants to die. It can’t cope with the continuous flood of its senses.

Boredom: the feeling you have when you’d rather be somewhere else than right here, right now.

Two of the greatest skills humans have according to this creature are being able to die, and being able to be bored. So what’s so special about being bored? If you look around you (as I often ask you to) you will notice only a hand full of things of what is actually going on around you. As I’m sitting here in a terminal room at uni I see my screen, hear my keyboard en have the lingering taste of coffee from the sip I just took.

But only after giving it some thought can I hear the terminal fans blowing, other people talking, pages being turned and the person next to me breathing softly while using the scroll wheel on his mouse. With even more effort I can hear more fans, people walking outside this room, the air conditioning and a myriad of noises coming from the corridor I can’t define.

Sensory overload

Imagine you couldn’t block out all those sounds, smells, and other sensory bombardments. How would your day be? Would you be able to concentrate on a single thing? Maybe not, you’d have to block out the rest to do so. But on the other hand. Would you ever be bored? Every second of every day presents you with new things to sense, new things to learn.

You’d go crazy. You would never get any rest because you can’t block out the sounds in your bedroom while you are trying to sleep. Everyone has those nights when they lie away and something in the background -just barely audible- is humming or making some other noise. It drives you crazy and the sound starts to grow into a deafening roar you can’t not hear. But look on the bright side, at least you’re not bored. You’re tired, cranky, and irritated, but not bored. You now have the joy of discovering all kinds of new (and probably irritating) sounds and sights while you’re trying to sleep. You will become aware of every little discomfort in your body and just can’t find a comfortable position.

You have all kinds of feelings, but you are definately not bored.

Shoulder surfing

A quick intermezzo here, the guy sitting next to me tells me he has ADHD and because of this he likes to learn while listening to music. Loud music probably judging by his long hair and band-shirt. The music allows him to block out all those other noises because they just aren’t loud enough to be heard anymore. I can’t imagine learning with loud music but if it works for you, who am I to try and stop you. Rock on!… or something like that.

Back to our blogpost.

What is boredom?

A while back I wrote a bit about being bored while driving. While you might think that taking things very slow is boring it rarely is. What am I saying, taking things slow never is boring. As long as you don’t block out all the senses. Going for a ten meter walk can be an adventure if you let it. Typing a single sentence is a journey across a keyboard. How can you ever be bored with all these things going on around you?

My interpretation of boredom is quite simple: It’s the feeling you have when you’d rather be somewhere else than right here, right now. If you’re bored you’re not experiencing what is going on right now. Because if you were, there is so much to discover and learn from this very moment that you wouldn’t be bored anymore.

Give it a go. The next time you’re bored, know that you are blocking out all kinds of experiences of the present moment and start experiencing them. Time won’t go any faster but moments will no longer pass in a blur. You’ll never get that time back. Time is a one way trip after all. You’d better make every second count. And if you’re bored, your missing out on all kinds of experiences.

Do I look like I need help? Do I ?!

Writing a blog and better the world, provide you with great content that is going to leave a mark and changes lives. Just some of those ideals that bloggers strive for. Making a difference you know.

I’ve tried to help others with issues I though I had an answer to. Tried and failed I admit. For you see, there are a lot of people out there who do not want your advise. In the most extreme cases the only reason they won’t listen to you is because you’re younger than they are. I know, it’s strange sometimes, especially when you’re an adult deep into your twenties, a respected blogger or simply just know what you’re talking about. Age can be an issue, as can gender, religion, or perceived life experiences.

It’s a different matter when you’re acting out your profession, no patient of mine questioned what I told them when I was working as a therapist. Young and old alike, even the doctors would listen to me. Wonderful. But what if your blog is your profession? Or a patient won’t listen to what you have to say? Then what?

Frustrations

One of the biggest gumption traps out there is when you actually know what you’re talking about, you know what needs to be done to solve something. And people just don’t want to hear it. No matter what you do, they won’t have any part of it. You know people like this don’t you? It’s draining trying to reason with people like this. Actually, there is no reasoning with people who aren’t open to reason.

And so there comes a time when you just have to give in and give up. Yes, sometimes the only thing you can do is take your hands off of the whole matter and let someone live with what they think is right. Nothing you say will ever change their mind. Confronting them with the error of their ways will only make things worse. They don’t want to hear any of it and can become downright hostile. For a blogger this means you’ve lost a reader, for a therapist it means you have one less patient. For a human being, it means your ego got bruised.

Mind your own business! – Oscar Stephenson Trich

Ostrich Politics

I don’t recall ever seeing ostriches being involved in politics but if they would, their modus operandi would be sticking their head in the sand and refusing to view immovable facts as a practical, reasonable basis for further action. What can you do about this? Absolutely nothing and it gets under your skin if you let it. And so you won’t give up, you keep trying to convince others that you know what you’re talking about and can help them.

This is what we bloggers want to do, we want to offer our advice, our help to anyone and everyone. We know what we’re writing about, we’re at the top of our game and you should listen. But you don’t, you never listen. And we just don’t give up.

Who’s the ostrich, we bloggers who keep trying to have you flock to our personal cause, refusing to see that you don’t want our advice. Or you, refusing to get your head out of the sand and realising that we’re making a genuine effort to help because we know what’s good for you.

Back to real life

We should both face the facts, there are things that you don’t want help with and so there are things we should all just leave alone. On the other side of that coin, realise that you’re burying your head in the sand on some things and you really need to face the issues. Stop hiding, and I’ll stop badgering.

How many online resources can you name in one minute that talk about how to make money online? Getting rich quick schemes, membership sites giving you all the details, eBooks giving you pointers on things you actually already know. You already know it’s not that hard to make money online. But of course, the problem is that it takes a lot of work, and if there is something you don’t want to do it’s work hard for your cash right? You want an online income, and you want it yesterday.

And this is your lucky day! In this blogpost I’m going to explain to you exactly how you can do it.

It’s actually magic:

Describe exactly what you need

But of course, if you want something you’d better be sure what it is exactly that you want. It’s just like making a wish. You can’t be vague about it. Have a nice clear image in your mind about the goal you want to reach. Let’s say you want to be earning 1k a month by the end of summer. Imagine yourself checking your bank account and seeing all the money, imagine how it feels. Do your best to get rid of any vagueness. Keep track of the whole and of every single minute detail. Feel it, make it as real in your mind as you possibly can. This actually is essential to the whole process.

Do you have a clear image? Do you know what it is you desire? Wonderful, let’s go on with step two

Use exactly the right words

Now write down what it is you want. If you’ve read older blogposts of mine you’ll know it’s very hard to put to words what you’re thinking. But give it a go anyway. To help you a bit with how specific you need to be here’s a quick mind game: Imagine that the one granting the wish is an evil djinn who will do everything he can to distort your wish into something not so pleasant. Don’t wish what you’ll become 100. Be a bit more exact or you’ll have a beard before sundown. It might take you several pages to describe this, that’s alright obviously because then you’ll have something you could even show others to make your idea clearer to them. If you find that you forgot about some details, go back to step one and try again.

Now you have that piece of paper, an exact representation of what had in mind, put to paper. It’s on to step three

Perform exactly the right rituals

You want to earn money from your blog by selling an eBook or some other product? (Just guessing here) You know what to do don’t you? Select exactly the right niche, write a good product you know will be worth every dollar you charge for it, build your blog audience and make sure people know what you are all about. Build subscriber numbers, search engine traffic, use social media. Do all those things you’ve read bout hundreds of times by now. You know what the rituals are, and if not you can quite easily find everything online. You’re not alone in this obviously, there are thousands if not millions of others trying to do the same thing.

What do you say? That sounds like work? Absolutely not, it’s magic! Or you might call it religion. You go to a house or worship, light a candle or incense and pray to a certain saint to get something. Be sure to light the right incense and use the right words in prayer to the right saint. Get it? It’s magic. You invest some time to get something for -almost- nothing.

The alternative

You might be on to me by now, I sure hope so. You need to do things to get things, there is no such thing as the free lunch after all. But there is one alternative way to make your wondrous wish come true. There is? Yes there is. It’s the simplest way actually, I was saving the best for last:

Hire a wizard who can do it all for you, he’s a magic expert after all right? There is just one tiny draw back: it will cost you.

And now back to the real world. There is no such thing as magic, but there are wizards. They just aren’t the magical kind. These are the people who actually learned how to perform the rituals, who invested time (and money) into learning everything and went out and did it. They could have hired a wizard to do it for them but they wouldn’t be one themselves. Now they are “in the know” and offer there services to anyone willing to pay their steep prices. You can buy eBooks written by them where they teach you how to do what you can find online for free. It’s where they got it.

Because you don’t want to learn how to do it yourself, knowledge is money. Realise this, invest time into learning something other people want to have/know and sell it. You’re the wizard now.

“The only stupid question is the one not asked.”

A huge problem with internet I’ve talked about before is that if people perceive you as an expert you are an expert. On one side of the coin this means that you can quite easily become an expert in just about any field out there. All it takes is knowing a bit more about something than others. It gets even more fun in real life. On the other side we have the danger of being perceived as an expert without being one. I’ll get back to that a bit further down.

Computer experts

Just this afternoon I walked into one of the terminal rooms of my faculty (the rooms where they keep the computers), a fellow student was sitting there looking very hard at some statistics. With a quick comment on how he was looking at his screen sparked a chat that lasted well over an hour. Now I can bluff my way out of most statistics things and I nodded from time to time. Although I do understand what they were about, I can’t recreate them.

The subject changed to things like SSH. And that is where I had a realisation. I actually have no idea at all what it’s for. Yes, it’s a secure shell. But what is secure, and what is shell. At that very moment I could do two things:

1. Bluff my way out of it and hope nobody would notice. After all, I’m an IT student, a perceived computer expert.
2. Confess that I had no idea what he was talking about.

Stupid questions

I started firing questions, quite simply because I no longer really care about what others think. I had questions and I wanted answers. The guy I was talking to seemed to know what he was talking about so that was a good place to start. He might not be an expert, but to me he was because he knew a bit more than I did. I got an answer to just about every question. Answers I could build upon. He spent more than an hour of his time explaining things.

Two students in a computer related education, one computer science and one information science. They both should know those basic things right? You shouldn’t be studying in this field if you have no clue how to do the simplest of things with a computer.
And right there is where the problems begin. People don’t ask questions in shame of now knowing.

Don’t be stupid

Had I not asked what SSH was I still wouldn’t know right now. There are a lot of things in “geek culture” for instance that everybody knows. Or at least it looks like they do. A random “42″ somewhere is sure to cause a few laughs. There are tons more of those acronyms and terms. BSOD, /dev/null, IRC, coffee++, Dvorak, the list is endless.
Now I know that there are several students who have no idea what these things mean. I used to be one of those actually. There are several ways to tackle such problems, gabs in your knowledge. You could look things up, and I recommend wikipedia for that. The quality of knowledge there is actually quite good. But the simpler approach – much faster too – is to ask what someone means. Becoming a google jockey also helps.

Shame

“Ask someone about something I should know?! Are you insane!” Yes my sanity can be questionable but that’s beside the point. Take my talk this afternoon for instance. The guy I was talking to knows more than me obviously. But because I’m a student in the IT sector, look the part and am a geek it’s an immediate assumption that I know the things I ended up asking.

There you have the other side of the coin I talked about at the beginning of this blogpost. Just by looking like an expert people project their ideas on what an expert should know onto you. It’s hard to break through that at times. The first few times I asked questions people would look rather strange as if I was joking. But now comes the great thing about my faculty: if you ask questions, no matter how basic people do not laugh.Now I know that’s not the same for every crowd you’re going to be in. But does laughter about a question say something about the one asking the question, or the ones laughing.

It’s not shameful not to know something. It’s the perfect beginning to learn. If you do not confess that you do not know, how will you ever learn? There is no shame in not knowing, there is only shame in not admitting to it and staying stupid. You are not a failure if you do not know. Got that?

If you do not know you are NOT a failure (you’re a failure if you don’t ask..!)

Looking back

On March 13th 2009 I made my very first blogpost ever, starting the blog on a wordpress hosted domain. Right off the bat I can tell you that that was a mistake. I should have started on my own domain from the beginning. My old domain is still getting more traffic every day than where you are now. Over the year this blog has had several small and big changes made to it. Ranging from new layouts, inserting images and discovering some useful HTML features all the way up to getting a clearer focus on what this blog is about.

I started out blogging about “A little blog on beginning, it sounds so simple but it’s quite complex.” this changed to ” lifestyle design and personal development with a Zen twist” and now I finally got down to what really gets me going: “Thoughts from a Zen mind in a Western World”. My view on just about anything and everything in my daily life. At times confronting and perhaps even a bit extreme, but always honest.

All I knew was that I wanted to learn how to write and connect with people around the world. I was looking for affirmation that there were more like-minded people out there. Also, I wanted to learn more about the dynamics of online marketing and social media. To do that you need some sort of platform to promote obviously. So it became twofold: connecting with minds and learning how to market.

Right now

Looking around at other bloggers who started out at just about the same time as I did (Corbett Barr and Carl R. Nelson to name two) you might be tempted to say that this blog is a very slow grower and I must be doing something wrong with the marketing. That could well be the case, I like to think the main reason is that these two put so many hours in their blogmarketing that they deserve it. There is no secret way of doing this, it comes down to putting in the hours. (That, and I haven’t done any guestposts)

Looking around you might also conclude that I’m doing rather well. For the first time in the history of this blog the feedburner counter jumped the 200 mark. It took me 8 months to reach 100, and 4 months to go up to 20o. May I conclude that I will be at 300 subscribers in another 2 months? (and 400 one month later). That would bring me well over 1000 subscribers in the next year. 300 Subscribers is one of my goals for this year as you might recall and it looks very much within reach.

Another awesome thing happened to me this year of blogging. For the very first time in my personal history I actually earned money through without selling a physical object. Although I’m no where near my goal of the $500 a month goal I set seeing money being transferred into your paypal account from a sale is empowering, no matter the amount! It gives a sense of accomplishment. And thinking about one of my initial intentions to start blogging, I’ve marketed my blog effectively enough to earn a few dollars. The theory that you can earn money through blogging is now a fact to me. I can now honestly say I know.

Personal things

Learning how to write has had a significant impact on how I think and express my thoughts. Developing the skill to put to words what you are thinking is very powerful and if this was the only thing that blogging would have brought me I would be a very happy man. But of course there is more to blogging than just that. It also thought me how to stand up for what I think a bit more. I’m still trying to keep friends with everybody at times but there are moments when you can quite simply agree with me or be wrong!

I am a blogger and I am in it for the long haul. Personal experience and thought will never dry up and as long as that is there you’ll be reading about it here. Blogging taught me how to express myself, how to market a website and how to use social media to that end. Through blogging I’m very happy to have made friends all over the world, loyal readers and honest critics. Thank you!

Looking forward

We made it this far. So what’s next? Life and business are nowhere without a direction, a goal, a set of values. You can always come here and read about the world through my eyes, I will keep doing the best I can to offer you high-value content and meaningful blogposts to think about. Ruthless honesty and simplicity are my main values here and that is what you will get. My ultimate goal is to have this blog grow to well over 1000 subscribers, for however long that takes. Once there, nothing will actually change except the number of readers you can connect with to discuss my thoughts.

Are there other plans as well? Of course! I’m thinking about a few things: guestposting, a second blog, an eBook, learning CSS and HTML, more serious marketing to get my name out there as a blogger, the blogger on the subject of Zen thinking and the effects it has on life in terms of personal development, lifestyle design, minimalism, productivity and simplicity. You get the idea don’t you?

This first year was awesome! Thank you for your continued support. Hang on to your seat, it’s going to be a wild ride from here.

A small request

As a closing thought on this blogpost I’m going to ask you for your help. If you think this blog has added value to your life in any way, please spread the word. Backlink on your blog, tweet  and urge others to subscribe to my RSS feed.Thanks again, I would be nowhere without you.

Are you carefree? Do you really believe you are? Or are you just not getting what it is you should care about. Let’s face it, you’re careless and not smart or witty enough to be carefree. Being carefree means having nothing to be worried about. You’re either dumb and don’t see the problems in your life or you really did make an effort and know that what all the things are that you could worry about. After identifying those you made short work of it and are now carefree. Good for you!

Assuming that you’re just as dumb as me and just as obviously careless let’s press on.

Identifying things to worry about

Take out a piece of paper and start writing right now. Take exactly one minute to write down what you are worrying about and don’t stop until your time is up. You have 1 minute (click and start writing)

If your list looks a bit like mine right there at the top wil be:

• Money
• Purpose in life
• How you measure up to others

And lets not forget those classics like debt, uncertainties about your job and why your blog isn’t  as successful like those A-list blogs.

Stop it this instant!

Now you have your wonderful list of worries, it’s time to identify why they are there. For most of them it boils down to you just don’t care enough to do something about it! Check your worries, is there something on that list you can’t do anything about? Anything at all?

Yes that’s it, you’re being careless about your worries, doing nothing to get rid of them, letting them drain your energy day in day out. Oh yes, these worries drain you even if you don’t actively think about them. That’s what being careless is all about. You just lock them away in the back of your mind where they can wreak havoc undisturbed. And you’re wondering why you’re tired all the time right?

Now being carefree is a whole different ballgame. Seeming carefree at least because there is not a soul in the world who is totally carefree. It’s one of those “benefits” of being human. You get to worry about anything and everything during life.So, in the end, we’re all dumb and careless. It’s just a matter of dealing with it or not, your choice to make and your burden to live with.

Still here? Why not subscribe to my RSS feed

The most common type of mind is the closed mind. Or so it seems…

“I’d better spend the money before it’s gone”

This weekend I had a small social get-together with the in-laws and their social circle. My girlfriend was celebrating her birthday and I can tell you, she has an open mind, which seems to be a rare thing these days in real life. On the net you can talk to loads of people who don’t react funny when you talk about personal development, lifestyle design and even minimalist living. Those are topics I would hesitate to discuss in real life, but you would think that keeping track of finances at least would be a good idea and people could see the sense of it. Especially those who seem to suffer from chronic financial struggle and debt.

Well, forget that idea

The topic quickly changed to the habit of smoking and how some people there really should quit. Of course the money-going-up-in-smoke issue was discussed at length. I wondered how much people could spend on such a thing and if they had a clue. Quite obviously the wrong question because some of the in-laws there know I keep track of every cent myself.

And then came the jaw-dropping moment:

Laughter about me tracking my spendings followed. The smokers concluded that if they didn’t spend it on tobacco they would surely spend it on something else, without ever knowing where the money went! They seemed to share a way of thinking that goes a bit like this: “I’d better spend the money before it’s gone”

I repeat: jaw-dropping moment.

As the evening progressed it didn’t get any better. Listening as a skill was in short supply. Everybody was talking about themselves and trying to best the others with an even unlikelier story. Mixed in were the occasional rants about self-pity, being victims of society and of course complaining about money -and the lack of-. You’d think that people discussing their problems would like to know how they could tackle such issues of life and perhaps make a change.

Another huge mistake

And then came the revelation as I heard a Heavenly choir sing to me: People like to be the victim, to shove all responsibility under the carpet and talk about how unfair the world is. It’s a safe place to be because it’s known and as most would agree: the unknown is very scary. It seems to be a taboo to talk about doing something you didn’t do before but should have done a long time ago. At least, talking to find solutions and asking others for their opinions, solving problems in life and developing oneself. How wrong I was. These people didn’t want solutions or a kick in the right direction, they wanted pity.

Taking responsibility for life and owning all your actions is terrifying apparently. This can not be done with a closed mind for the answers to problems and changing of habits are products of the open mind, ready for new things and uncertain adventures. Thinking outside of the boxed thoughts seems to me essential for change to occur and responsibility to be taken.

I don’t understand closed minds like these. Why wouldn’t people want to change the negative things in life and strive for better things? Why stay in the same place if there are ways to get out? Then again. I could be terribly wrong here and should be put back in my place. Who am I to act like I’m superior!

Closed minds are all around and more often than not clash with each other in a struggle for right of speaking. Not listening to one another and complaining about the unfairness of the world is what surely follows. Or so it seems…

What do you think?

If you’re a bit like me you’ve probably been told you’re crazy on a lot of occasions. Sometimes it’s a bit more subtle and you’re “just” called unrealistic or a dreamer but it can even go as far as being called totally insane. From time to time you come across others who have the same thing.

The Internet is one such place, a place where you can be yourself without getting into trouble for being crazy. You might be called eccentric but most likely you’ll be a unique voice and if you start blogging you’ll be sure to gather a lot of subscribers. The benefit is Internet instantly becomes clear: there are more people like you out there. If only one in a thousand people think like you do chances are you will hardly ever meet one in real life yet set up a blog on the subject and in no time you’ve got yourself a little tribe.

The truth is out there

But is craziness really crazy? Or is it just the opinion of the way a minority thinks. It’s out of sync with the norm and so it’s somehow wrong. The truth is not always the opinion of the majority after all.

The minorities however are on the rise. Talking with fellow students or colleagues probably will get a few raised eyebrows on the subjects of personal development and lifestyle design. The four hour workweek gets some laughs and looks of disbelief, the whole idea of passive income streams is all but ignored. Ignore the crazy folk.

Talking online and blogging however you can’t deny that these topics are definitely getting more and more attention. It might just get mainstream soon and in doing so it’s going to get harder and harder to be heard. Because that’s one of the benefits of being crazy. On the one hand you don’t get listened to because you’re crazy, on the other hand you do find yourself part of a tribe that does listen. Once that tribe gets to big it’s going to be a tough job staying one of it’s leaders.

Little league

A simple example: I blog about personal development, lifestyle design, minimalism and zen. ….ever heard of Zen Habits? Illuminated Mind? and of course the blog of Tim Ferris. A small time blogger like myself couldn’t possibly compete with these huge guns in the niche. Maybe if I started a few years ago I’d be one of them but as things are we’re down here. Proof that these ideas aren’t that strange after all although when looking at real life experiences only you wouldn’t know you were sane.

The Internet offers us so much. In real life our ideas might be called crazy, we’re the only ones we know who have them. While on-line there are so many people talking about the subject that we have a tough time making ourselves heard through all the twitter and chatter.

What can we do about that one? Either way it’s hard being heard. But what if you implement the lessons from real life into blogging? Write about something that seems totally crazy on-line. After all, it’s just another environment you’re in and in that perspective no different than your real life chats with people.

• Being crazy makes you stand out;
• standing out gets you noticed;
• getting noticed gets you heard (eventually);
• getting heard lets you share your ideas.

You meet all kinds of cool people who share your ideas or at least have an interest in what you’re writing. The world is big enough to build your own group around just about any subject. If you thought of it it’s certain others think the same. Blogging is the game of finding those people.

Call me crazy, but that’s how I see the on-line world. Millions of people, and we’re all crazy in one way or the other. Don’t be ashamed, it’s the place to be to find like-minded people. Speak up about your thoughts and you will be heard. Be yourself, be crazy and enjoy talking to the other crazies.