Commenting on the Comments
Tamar has this quote today from Old Horsetail Snake, a funny guy who lives in a retirement home, about why he doesn't respond to the comments on his blog:
"So I gotta keep writing so I can keep getting comments. It's a vicious circular. Anyway, I usually don't comment directly on your comments. It's mostly for lack of time. See, I am reading, and commenting to when appropriate, 63 other writers. I just thought it was better for me to comment on your stuff than to comment on your comments. If you have any comment on this, comment away."
Which got me thinking, Well, he's in an old age home and he doesn't have time to respond? I'm earning my living pounding at this very keyboard, plus performing 50% of household chores and childraising (times two), plus waving to my two grown children from a distance, plus occasionally trying to get out of the house and work out or go to a tai chi class, plus meditating 10% as much as I'd like to, plus dipping into a book or magazine for pleasure and edification now and then -- why am I bothering to respond to my readers' comments?
Well, the thing is, it seems to me that if someone who doesn't even know me takes the trouble to find my site and read it and think about what I'm saying and write it down, and thus make my blog more interesting, the least I can do is thank them. And often it turns out that I actually think of something interesting to say to them.
Sometimes I don't answer a particular comment, but that's because I think it speaks for itself -- I just have nothing valuable to add.
BTW, Old Horsetail Snake has a blogroll with a lot of funny blogs on it that I just discovered this morning, such as Miss New Orleans and Underpaid Kept Woman. (Why, I wonder, were those the two names on his blogroll that I chose to investigate first?)
And now I've got to go think of an answer to a meme Tamar sent me. And as you might expect, I don't even know what a meme is. See you later.
"So I gotta keep writing so I can keep getting comments. It's a vicious circular. Anyway, I usually don't comment directly on your comments. It's mostly for lack of time. See, I am reading, and commenting to when appropriate, 63 other writers. I just thought it was better for me to comment on your stuff than to comment on your comments. If you have any comment on this, comment away."
Which got me thinking, Well, he's in an old age home and he doesn't have time to respond? I'm earning my living pounding at this very keyboard, plus performing 50% of household chores and childraising (times two), plus waving to my two grown children from a distance, plus occasionally trying to get out of the house and work out or go to a tai chi class, plus meditating 10% as much as I'd like to, plus dipping into a book or magazine for pleasure and edification now and then -- why am I bothering to respond to my readers' comments?
Well, the thing is, it seems to me that if someone who doesn't even know me takes the trouble to find my site and read it and think about what I'm saying and write it down, and thus make my blog more interesting, the least I can do is thank them. And often it turns out that I actually think of something interesting to say to them.
Sometimes I don't answer a particular comment, but that's because I think it speaks for itself -- I just have nothing valuable to add.
BTW, Old Horsetail Snake has a blogroll with a lot of funny blogs on it that I just discovered this morning, such as Miss New Orleans and Underpaid Kept Woman. (Why, I wonder, were those the two names on his blogroll that I chose to investigate first?)
And now I've got to go think of an answer to a meme Tamar sent me. And as you might expect, I don't even know what a meme is. See you later.
posted by Richard Lawrence Cohen at 9:05 AM
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