Blogging About Blogging
A while back, I called myself a bad blogger, mostly in jest [Changing of the Guard]. I had gotten so caught up in what I had been doing that I forgot to take a picture. Two commenters were kind enough to say that I should have a cookie anyway. In truth, I was a bad blogger. I did not fulfill the requirements of the job. I did not provide visuals to go with the text. That got me thinking about living a life versus blogging about it.
I was having a lesson on Optimus at Stepping Stone Farm. I knew I would be writing a post about it. Before I got on, I gave Coach Courtney my phone so that I could take a between-the-ears shot to go with the post. We both forgot.
OTOH, it wasn’t a bad thing to be a bad blogger right then. I was caught up in the lesson. I was concentrating on what I was doing. I was in the moment rather than removing myself from the moment to comment on it.
I am not alone.
“She started to plan family time around paid posts. “Someone wants to send us a board game while eating a certain cereal? That’s what we’re doing on Friday,” she says. “I was playing the game with them, but I wasn’t really there. I was watching and thinking about how I was going to caption the photo I’d take. It all took away from real time with my kids.” New York Post, “My mommy blog ruined my life”,
Mackenzie Dawson, 2016
On Instagram, Millennial Life Crisis is running a series where there is the Instagram-worthy caption and then the rest of the story.
“INSTAGRAM: Toronto, you sure are beautiful. This was one of my favorite trips of 2019 and I definitely intend on going back because I didn’t get enough time in the city. Maybe one day if I get lucky I’ll get to live there.
–
REALITY: I had to pay $26 to park my rental downtown so that I could run around for hours trying to find this sign because I wanted to be able to say that I’d been there. I got yelled at by four people, pooped on by a bird and, when I got back to my rental car saw that I’d gotten a parking ticket because I didn’t get back to it quick enough…” millennialme88/#MillennialLifeCrisis 2019
They are both making the point that online presentation does not always reflect reality. I am making a slightly different point. I think my blog does reflect reality. But then, I would say that, wouldn’t I?
My point is both accounts demonstrate the lengths one goes to in order to cover a story. That’s fine. If that’s what you are doing. I certain spent enough time covering horse shows. I was not riding in those shows at the time.
Text can be done in hindsight. You do the thing. You go home at write about it. It requires a small amount of mental discipline. I have found my brain wandering off into composing blog posts while at a show. I jerk my mind back to the present and carry on.
It also depends on the level of the event. A little detachment won’t torpedo the entire occasion [State of the Blog: Pondering Twitter]. I suspect at my next lesson, I won’t be quite as stressed. I will do a better job of taking a minute or two out of the day to snap a pic.
Obviously, this is not true if one is covering an event that requires notes in real time. For a blog post, reflection afterward is possible.
With photos, this is not possible at all. Photos happen when the event does. I’ve recreated one or two but they lack immediacy.
[Jump]
So, blogging versus life. Sometimes, they coexist. Sometimes, one shuts the other out.
Update [Blog V. Life, HSL Color Reference]
Stay safe. Stay sane.
Katherine Walcott
Virtual Brush Box 
This is exactly why I will never be a blogger, I want to live my life not document it. Yes, I have a blog and I write on it, but it’s an online conversation with myself, like writing a travel diary or saving my gig tickets in a box, it’s there to remind me of what I found important at the time. If other people like the words I string together that is the icing on the cake.
Blogging is a way of making human connections, but should they really be at the expense of your real life?
You come by this naturally. Your father was an excellent photographer. He preferred to capture the moment on film as a spectator rather than as a participant. He was the photo editor of his college’s daily newspaper and took it very seriously. He toyed with the idea of making it his career. He didn’t. He chose words instead of images. He often said that that decision saved his life because if he had chosen to be a photographer, he would have coved the Vietnam Nam War and would not have survived it.
I, on the other hand, prefer to engage rather than record during an event. Writing about it after the event crystallizes it in my memory but only after, not during. Trying to switch from subjective to objective interrupts my concentration. I like to immerse myself in whatever is happening. I do one, then the other.
You are a delightful blend of both of us. No wonder you blog.
I rarely have photos. Those taken by me, I mean. I don’t know why. No one’s been clammering for more (although they probably will now). In some ways, my blog has almost taken over my journal. I love your blogs, illustrated or not.
Activities that make us forget where we are – in a good way – are to be cherished.