blog identity crisis... averted?

I haven't been doing much blogging lately, and I think a big reason is that I'm not really sure what this blog is supposed to be anymore. That sounds weird because I created it and I'm the only one who writes it, so it can be anything I want it to be. But I don't know what I want it to be. Maybe this has just run its course.

Who am I writing for? I have a handful of people that I know read this, and I get a few dozen random google hits every day. I have a couple of sponsors that give me a small but not insignificant revenue stream. But what I am doing here?

Blah.

Ok, so I saw this graph, and I thought it was interesting. First of all you have to understand the tool. It uses a two-dimensional political spectrum (economic issues on the x and social issues on the y) to plot the political sentiments of people or groups. You can take a test to see where you'd fit on the graph, and the creators of the site have done research to estimate where various politicians from around the world would fall.

The graph shows something I already know, that prominent US Presidential candidates represent an extremely narrow spectrum of right-wing authoritarian policy positions. Since I'm in the far bottom left, I'm completely alienated. Many of the people who criticize the current administration and its supporters are then supporting a party that is almost the exact same, with a few tiny differences (differences that admittedly in some situations can make a difference to real people - the point is that the ideology isn't very different). And then when a guy like Nader comes along, they hate him and vilify him, and totally miss the irony of it all.

Now I already understood that, but I have no idea how well anybody else understands this whole situation. Or if they care. Or if they'd be able to make sense of the graph. Or if they'd care to. I think it is a useful tool, but will anyone else? More specifically, should I put it on my blog? Why?

That's just one example and there are a hundred more. I guess whenever I have these blog identities crises I should just remember that I'm doing this for myself. I should approach it like a personal journal that I'm sharing with anyone who is interested. I should just write about the things I want to write about. I guess this means recording ideas and events that I'd want to look back on. I did that recently with my series of "grad school?" posts because I've got something going on with grad school choices (more on that in another post maybe). It was helpful. I could extend the same logic to political thoughts, and personal events (a.k.a. what's up with my cats), and whatever else.

So I guess I hereby resolve to drop the formality and the second-guessing about what my audience wants to read and I'll just write what I think makes sense to write. I'll try to label the post title very literally, to at least give you some chance to skip the boring shit.

So that means getting away from just posting a link and a line of commentary that is clearly intended to share with others. I wonder if I'll really do that.