Six is having problems
Adjusting to his clone status
Have to put him on a shelf
All day long we hear
him crying so loud
I just wanna be myself
I just wanna be myself
I just wanna be myself
– alice cooper

Pardon me while I take a paddle in the sea of blogging narcissism today. Call it “Blogging inward”. So.., I’ve come to a realization. I think. Blogs are repetitive. Not only within themselves, (Self indulgent bloggers such as myself often live in the echo chamber of one’s own views and those of the folks that comment.) but within our genre as well. Especially if we take it upon ourselves to report the “latest”. That troubles me a bit. I used to spend much more time reporting on paddling news stories, press releases and the like. I still do occasionally. However, I also know that the stories are covered all over the blogosphere. There are days when I see the same story in my favorite blogs, feeds, company newsletters, paddle mailing groups, yahoo groups, various discussion boards and such, it gets a bit, well, boring.

Here’s the thing. If you are all wired up, bookmarked, Face Booked, YouTubed, twittered and RSS’d you’re going to hear everything there is to hear ad nauseam. Yet the perception of the blogger is often that of  one living in a vacuum. As if those you are writing to are not awash in web “2-point-whatever”. Where every story there is to tell must be told. . by YOU.  Of course that’s not the case and everyone is buried in content these days.  In fact if you go down that road you could convince yourself there is no need to write at all. Everyone is saying everything there is to be said. . . twice. You can find yourself simply repeating the meme, passing the viral, slipping the disc. .Well maybe not that last one, but you get my point. It’s somewhere in there that ownership has changed. When you do not have a blog, but a blog has you. Something to think about.

In paddling we’re lucky. Paddle bloggers are most often participants and not simply reporters.  I don’t think as many paddle bloggers get caught up in the quasi-publishing traps as they could.  While I’m sure some blogs will ultimately become business concerns, my bet is that others will just keep getting more interesting.