Blogging Responsibility
Category: Navel Gazing...
Posted Tuesday, August 19, 2003 at 04:41 PM [GMT-6]

Blogging's a hobby for me; I can quit anytime I want. No, really. I'm sure I can, even though I failed miserably the last time I tried. But that's neither here nor there.

I don't obsess over things like hit count or Ecosystem ranking, although I do check both on a fairly regular basis. I don't think I've ever posted about hitting a particular visitor count milestone, or being at a certain point on the blogvolutionary scale, and I'm pretty sure I wouldn't even if my standing with respect to those things was actually impressive. ("Only losers don't give their scores," you say. To which I reply, "oh...oh...YEAH?")

I do enjoy looking at the referral list via my SiteMeter account, to see how people stumbled onto The Gazette. Traffic here is small enough that I can stay on top of that without much problem, and I often see some fascinating referrals.

But last night, I found one that set me back on my heels a bit. It was a Google search, and the term was "temporary+blindness+in+one+eye." Yikes.

I know which post scored the Google hit. It was this one, where I announced rather lightheartedly the discovery of the chest-dwelling alien whose identity is still unknown. I used the search phrase in what I thought was a humorous fashion, to show just how brave I am.

But...dang!...who actually goes looking for that phrase? Who, other than someone who is experiencing the symptom (which, by the way, is a big-time serious indicator of big-time serious problems), or knows someone who is? And it made me a little sad to think that my comment is at least one that popped up in Google's search results, when what that person needed was some real and serious advice.

OK, I'm making this into a bigger deal than it needs to be. But, for me, it's a reminder of the power of words...the power of written words...the power of written words that get memorialized by mindless webcrawlers for a really long time.

I'm not sure where I'm going with this. I hope the person who was seeking information found his or her way to some good advice, and has followed it, and has the problem under control. I also hope that his or her stop here was at worst only a very short delay, and at best, an edifying respite from a scary situation. I'm beginning to better understand scary situations.