Why Blog In Fear?
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Tags: anxiety, benefit, blogging, clenched fist, dj, expression, fear, momentum, money, obligation, open source, point of view, radio, rock star, sting, stuff store, united states, white knuckle, whole lot
Recently I wrote a post and mentioned fear and blogging in the same sentence. See Open Source Blogging - One Point of View.
That really made me think about how beneficial the concept of open source blogging really is. If you let go of the fear that someone may “borrow” your work and instead just concentrate on producing content, imagine the relief that you will feel.
It’s a bit like that old expression, “You don’t own your stuff, your stuff owns you.” A couple of years ago we moved from the United States to the UK and I think we got rid of 80% of our stuff and it was a nearly magical freeing experience. Once I didn’t have to care for stuff, store stuff, insure stuff or move stuff, my life got a whole lot simpler. And now that we’ve moved back from the UK, after two years abroad, I’m still enjoying not accumulating stuff.
I heard a rock star interviewed on the radio once, Sting I think, and the DJ asked him if he enjoyed having a lot of money. The answer surprised me. He said that he really didn’t enjoy all the money because with the money came the fear that people were trying to steal it from him, the obligation to have to watch over it and the responsibility to make sure that it was properly managed.
In a lot of ways, letting go of your white knuckle clenched fist on your blog content is a lot like that. The moment you stop trying to push everyone away from freely using your content then that is just another part of life that you don’t have to deal with. You can take that time and anxiety and use those moments for something else. Something more enjoyable.
Take this blog for example, I’m hoping that people come and steal my content and give me a link back for it. I hope that these thoughts and concepts benefit others. And I release my work here into the world to be used and used and used again.
One day I’ll be gone, but hopefully a spark or motion that grew from my work will develop momentum and value and move forward to help or benefit a lot of people. I agree that is a very zenish outlook but the benefits of letting go of your work, letting other people use it freely and being appreciative of a link and attribution back to your site is more than enough to expect, if you let it be.
