We’ve gone through some stuff together haven’t we… You and I. I have been hitting a few of those random milestones lately. With the anniversary of this blog and nice round numbers of followers and so forth, I’ve been writing a lot of those blog introspection posts.
I know what I’m supposed to do. I’m suppose to humble brag a bit about numbers that mean absolutely nothing to anyone but me. Use the space to shout out those bloggers that have helped me along the way and maybe mention some up and coming ones, so I can prove later that I knew the before! I suspect I may be the only one that gets any amusement out of discussing the search terms that lead to my blog. But guys, I enjoy it enough for all of us!
I know I should also set some goals for this place. They teach you this as soon as you can grasp the concept. If you want to achieve anything in life, you have to set clear and attainable goals. A checklist. You can’t get anywhere if you don’t pick a direction. An order loving bore such as me is intimately familiar with the process of figuring out a desired result and establishing a painstakingly precise procedure to get to it.
And yet, in all those posts about my own blog, the sections dedicated to future projects are vague at best. The site itself is probably best define as a spontaneous assortment of randomness. I mean, just look at what you’re reading right now…
It would be a lie to say I didn’t have a clear objective in mind hen I started this blog. I did. Several in fact:
- I wanted a virtual spot to write every day (check)
- I wanted to write about anime specifically (um…)
- I wanted to collect fun anime gifs (check)
That’s it. That was and is the grand master plan. I occasionally wander away from that second point but for the most part, I think I did ok at achieving what I set out to do.
At this point, surely some of you are wondering to yourselves, what’s the point? (and not only of this particular post…) Why go through this trouble – and those of you who have your own blogs know that it can get rather time-consuming – if I don’t want to get something out of it?
Now before we go too far, let me make clear that I get A LOT out of this blog. I’ve talked about it plenty of times. The tangible connections to the people in our community, the heightened appreciation for the media I love, the satisfaction of creating something… Any one of these things make it more than worth the trouble. But these intangibles were an unexpected bonus.
At the start, I really didn’t think about any of that. I was happy clacking away on my keyboard talking about animes. Or about the weird little things I noticed in them. And making drinking games. I really like my drinking games you guys. No one should ever under any circumstance actually play any of them…
Speaking of which – should we get together for a huge rabbit watch-along and try one of them out. Maybe with juice? Would anyone be up for that?
…you see what I did there? I do that all the time. Because I don’t in fact have a point to this blog or most posts, I can readily grab on to any random idea as it pops into my mind and try to develop it. Having no higher purposes or precise results to aim for, means I have the possibility to go wherever I want.
It means I can’t actually fail while calling whatever I want a win. I have so many wins you guys! It also means that I probably won’t ever do anything substantial with this blog but I’ll try out all sorts of little things, some of which will be lots of fun. I enjoy promoting other blogs and doing collabs but I don’t have to do those things.
This happy-go-lucky attitude has really served me well so far. I have yet to consider this blog “work” or get “burned out”. I rarely feel “guilty” about not writing one day. I watch whatever anime I feel like, whenever I feel like it, because I’m not dedicated to a particular genre and I don’t have to post reviews if I don’t have anything to review…
On the other hand, we all crave a sense of achievement somewhere. I mean if there’s really no point at all to posting, then I might as well use that time to learn something new or watch even MORE anime. That probably wouldn’t be healthy…
This is where my aimless goals come in. These aren’t so much actual things to achieve, they are more random events around my blog that make me happy. The weird search terms are one. These are out of my control and I don’t ever feel bad for not having an interesting search that leads to my blog, but when I notice one, it always makes me happy.
Also, updating my index page (i.e. Reviews). Every time I add a title on there, it’s extremely satisfying for me. Why? I don’t know…. In fact, I want to update it in some way by organizing all my posts that discuss specific animes, not just the reviews. I also want to figure out a way to logically present my essay posts. Oh shoot, did I just set goals for myself?
This may have been my most pointless post yet, which is fitting I think. I guess all I wanted to say, it’s ok if you don’t have any huge things you want to achieve. It’s ok if you do and you fail. You shouldn’t feel like your hobbies have to have a point. Wandering aimlessly might get you nowhere most of the time, but that’s how you discover the most wonderful hidden spots.
