379 unique hits.
I hit refresh.
…still 379 unique hits.
I look to my left and through the darkness with dry eyes. Chanterelle is sleeping, warm and comfortable under our comforter. I shiver, and, like a gambling addict at a slot machine, I hit refresh again.
Ah…381 unique hits.
I’m like a junkie, always looking for a better high. It’s never enough for me. Some days my blog gets over a thousand readers, and I celebrate momentarily. But when the hits slow down, and the next day I only get 100, I am even more upset.
But why do I care? Why am I so concerned with these vanity metrics? What in god’s name would convince me to sit on this couch, hunched over my mac, refreshing my live statistics over and over?
The same thing which has always driven nearly everything I do. The ever-constant search for validation.
Ah yes, validation. The one thing nearly anyone can give you, but hardly ever do. A select few post some complimentary comments, or politely rate my post, but most don’t care about my blog. They don’t care about my endless hunt for more compliments, more hits, more love.
If there has been one theme running through the vein of this year, it has been the lesson that you must validate yourself. That the belief in one’s self is the only thing that lasts. The only thing that leaves you truly satisfied.
What a wonderful lesson to learn! What a genius realization! What a virtue I have discovered! Praise the universe and it’s teachings!
But still I sit at midnight in the cold. Shivering in my briefs as I hit the refresh page yet again, promising that this will be the last time, and then I will go to sleep.
And then I hit refresh again.
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{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
I never thought at it in this way, by mean of your validation I should be super happy and stop clicking refresh since on the they jaws was up, I got 12.000 hits in one day on my youtube video, wow! But then surf goes down and so goes the hits, like life, it has its up and down but if you look deep behind the superficial notion of validation and alienation there is the perpetual motionless notion of the oneself never separated from anything, in love with all thing regardless of the up and down of life.
stop refreshing NOW!
Buona Notte
Marco
Put on some warm, fuzzy Pajamas (or long underwear) and forget about the world outside your ego-self.
Continue to write, create, learn and dream about a future where your work and actions speak for you and attract attention on merit and/or relevance topically and contextually to/for/by others.