Most of us choose to stay away from unnecessary challenges. We love the usual, get confused when life offers an array of ever-multiplying choices, and firmly believe that getting out of one’s comfort zone is extremely fool-hardy. I know that most readers will read this and mutter, ‘Nonsense! Not me, at least.’ But hey, don’t we all love to remain inside a similar and familiar pattern? This means we are all similar to electrons stuck inside the same orbit. Yes, we are indeed like the electrons in atoms that keep bouncing happily within the boundaries of their individual isolation. But what happens when some maverick electrons decide to jump orbits and step outside their familiar chaos? That is when life understands innovation.

Jumping outside your familiar chaos is the first step to change the pattern of your life. The other alternative is of course to remain trapped inside the same pattern. If you’ve understood the chemistry of this phenomenon, you will also intuitively know why most bloggers too stay away from topics that may be unfamiliar to them. They love familiarity because they have mapped it well and can navigate through this cocoon without ending up with bumps on their head or fractures to their ego. This is why most bloggers choose not to choose diversity for writing. They can, most of the time, rely on first reading what others have written, get a ring of familiarity to catalyse them and then write. The problem when there are only a few people writing on a particular topic is that they are not able to generate enough ideas for a ring of familiarity to start acting. Blogging contests have the inherent advantage of incentives egging the initial flow of posts and then come those who read these posts and get their booster dose of familiarity. But this is just one aspect of blogging that I have noticed in these past few years.

Bloggers trapped inside a pattern #BloggingTruth

Bloggers trapped inside a pattern #BloggingTruth

What most people who have started blogging do not realise is that the more they write on diverse topics and subjects, their ability to create a ring of familiarity in their own minds with their self-generated ideation becomes high. You see, blogging needs writing skills, ability to think logically, capability to do sustained research, a fair understanding of being organised, lots and lots of passion, and the will to keep adding to one’s level of knowledge and awareness. Besides this a working knowledge of photography and photo-editing helps. Knowing how to draw, illustrate, and sketch both on paper as well as in the digital format will be a boon. All these things are connected to the actual production of a blog post. A blogger’s job doesn’t end there. It moves on then to into the realms of networking and marketing. The entire sequence that gets activated when a person begins writing a blog post is complex and inter-connected. I believe that the sooner bloggers understand that when they simply wait for contests to light their desire to blog they are making all the lessons learnt from past experiences to stumble and fall apart. This is why so many bloggers ask so many questions during any contest period. Their mind is simply unable to grasp the intricacies of a topic because they have allowed all past lessons to fade away. In simple terms it is best to keep the blogging instincts within live and kicking all the time. Blogging, let me add here, is a lifetime commitment and not just another activity that can be channeled to earn something.

At the same time I wouldn’t say that blogging in spurts is bad. After all, blog posts are supposed to be an intrinsic part of chronicling our times for future generations because we already know how history of anything and everything is written to cater to vested interests. Blogs, I believe, have the power to be a good and viable source for future to look back and know what really happened.

This is where I must bring in the concept of self-actualization in blogging. Why must bloggers wait for indispire to suggest them a topic to write on? Why must bloggers wait at all? Bloggers are supposed to be people who should have that special power to find out subjects every day and then sit down and write after whatever research is feasible. I am sure there are hundreds of bloggers who are doing just this – especially those who have niche blogs and must write more simply because newer topics in their interest zone are popping up at break-neck speed anyway. This means that every interest zone is anyway having no dearth of subjects to pick up.

Why then must bloggers prefer to encourage strange and diverse topics that happen on indispire? The reason is simple. Diversity in subjects have the strength to make a blogger sharper in perceptive skills. Anyone reading this post must start posting on indispire topics with regularity and only then would they realise the truth in what I have said. A small part of me also insists that I put on record that indispire too must seriously consider incentivizing it. I mean, let there be the declaration of a small sum of prize money for each week that can be divided amongst all those who decided to write on the topic short-listed. This isn’t difficult for indiblogger that, I am sure, already has the means and the spirit to do. But the most important thing for bloggers to know is that being trapped inside a pattern isn’t a great feeling and writing on diverse topics helps them beat this fault that we humans are born with.

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Arvind Passey
11 December 2018