Hello, interesting all this. I enjoy the times when I log on to your site Keri, I do not blog, and I really don't read any other blogs. In fact, I have no idea how I found yours. A lot of what has been said reminds me of a book I sort of read once. It was called, " The Dark Side of the Light Chasers" as with all self help books you have to take what you like, and leave the rest. Embracing all of yourself.... when we see something we don't like in another.. probably means we haven't emabraced it in ourselves. Just some wondering thoughts for you. Thanks for your great creative expressions. Heather.

Thank you, Keri. I've been wrestling with these very same issues. You put it into words so beautifully.

I wish I didn't have the compulsion to compare ... to deem one thing/person better than another (especially me). I guess it's just a given on this journey. All I can do is bless that Divine irritation and figure out what it's trying to encourage me to embrace. Ultimately, it's myself.

We don't ever have to THE best. We just need to be OUR best.

I learned very quickly when I worked in an office filled with women that game playing was a requirement for membership. I have seen the same thing in the journaling world. I don't care to be a member and refuse to play the games.

Also, I believe cliques border on being a form of prejudice and prejudice is one of the ugliest of human traits.

I'm so glad to see you write about this subject, Keri.

I wrote a post about people advertising for their blogs a while back. I admit, I check my statistics to see how many people have visited and "who links to me" and I know deep down I want people to be interested in what I have to say. What I will not do, is "advertise" to get more people to visit my blog. I think the biggest compliment someone can give me is to put a link on their site because they enjoy reading my blog, not because they feel obligated to because I have a link to them. We all want to be liked, and have other people be interested in us. I won't do anything differently with my blog to get people to like me. Keri, competitiveness, wanting to be heard and popular are not bad things, unless you let them be. From what I've read on your site, I feel you are a genuine, caring, compassionate person.

once more keri - you amaze me. your process is so inspiring and you make me think. i so enjoy the way that you present the things that occupy you; and i have been led to so many other great things via. your site, too. hooray keri!

I read the Anne Lamott exerpt in Salon. She seems to completely not see the gender difference when she keeps comparing her son to herself, how strange. Most of how the son behaves is utterly normal boy-stuff. And then her theorising the upbringing of kids, that they go ballistic if you're not strict. As a mother of two teenagers I can assure you this is BS. Being an honest human being, standing beside them and not above them works absolutely fine. But I would embarras teenage hell out of them, if I would go around showing how emotionally touched I got by every word they say, like Anne Lamott.

ahhhhhh . . . amen, sister :) the mirror of the beastie that lives within . . . and reading about your recent letting go of so much blog surfing has prompted me to look at my own . . . and focus on the ones that lift and expand and feel most true and open . . . misery may love company, but I can't help but feel that there is this larger animal - this creative wildthang that loves mixing it up and smooshing around and hanging out with other wildthangs with wings . . . :)

So, this made me tear up...because I'm the friend Hope (earlier comment) was speaking to, because I just said all of this to her. She pointed me to your post this morning. I'd have gotten here eventually anyway, but what timing. I'm really emotional right now, hence the teary eyes :)

I've struggled all my life to want to be seen and heard, and even though I feel at times like I am, mostly I long for too much. I expect more than what is probably natural and normal, because my desire is so much more than the usual.

I started a blog entry yesterday about this same issue, but decided to go "out to lunch" for a while instead. Mother Nature saw to it that I wasn't online hardly at all today, but she's on my side, because she recognizes that I need to get away from it.

I made a step yesterday by removing my commenting feature. I relied too much on it to get me through the day, my writer's crack :) Well done for you, I say...

I'd have thought you to be the last person to worry about these things, the most popular girl in the blogosphere! And now you have me guessing who you are talking about, where the cliques are. Alas, you won't tell, you don't have the mean disposition I have. Although I wouldn't either, but for different reasons no doubt. And about the woods subject; you wouldn't by any chance know about a lovely piece of rentable Canada, would you? For a pair of supersweet musicians and a pair of totally uncompetative artists and a bunch of great kids to camp on?

oh, i so know what you mean...whenever i get really annoyed with people i have to stop and think what is it about myself am i seeing in this person?

i recently started school again for muscular therapy, and all those old feelings of wanting to be liked that i felt both in high school and college have come rushing back. fortunately i'm in a better place now than i was then, but it's an ongoing battle/process/whatnot.

and anne lamott rocks. i've been wanting to read her latest book.

thanks for a kick-ass, open and honest post keri!

I started a blog last year and did not keep it anymore than three or so months. Why? I felt fake, as if I was grabbing for attention. I recently started one again to connect with like minded people and as a resource. People who do visit my blog leave interesting information and links for me to check out. I am thankful for that and I could care LESS what people think about what I write. I keep a written journal that I don't much share with anyone as a way to keep things real.

The internet world has certainly grown much bigger in the last year and new blogs have popped up like mushrooms. This is exciting because people have a way to be heard and some have a way to show and tell. Maybe a person who always went through life thinking "I'm really not good at anything" suddenly feels inspired (via any random blog) to take a photograph in a new way for them, or maybe draw a picture or maybe for the first time ever release their thoughts and feelings, however tentatively, through writing words.
The internet world is filled with all these real people, reaching out in a 'world' that is not as "real" as the woods behind your house or the kitchen in my own where right now this very minute my 9-year old is telling me to hurry up and get off the computer and make him an egg sandwich for breakfast.
Weeee! Real life!!

I can relate to what Chel says - I just started my own blog and I'm already feeling it should be "good" and "worthy" enough. I'm not a sentimental person, but I miss the old net :)

Thanks for writing, Keri. I really like your blog.

We all go through this. I was telling a friend yesterday that sometimes we just need to purge ourselves from all the outside influence. When we feel the *need* for people's acceptance, then we're blogging, writing, drawing, painting, etc. for the wrong reasons. We should be acting on our passions and sharing them because WE LOVE WHAT WE DO. ;) Terrific post!!

Well, that's what I call "a whole declaration". I think it's really interesting that people give their opinions in their blogs. I think for many of those who do it it's therapeutical. It might not be always interestig, but hey... not every day is so, is it? Sometimes I think we just want to catch the eye, to attach greater importance to our everyday live, wich is kind of childish but indeed this somehow makes it beautyful.
Maybe the thing is that we've just got to know how to classify all that information... Hours go fast and sometimes I feel unhappy with myself for not accomplishing what I had planned for the day. But,from time to time,reading what you write or any other of the blogs I read makes my day, makes me feel better and that's enough for for me.
I had never been aware of competitivity untill you talked about it. Perhaps there is some of that... but if it is "healthy" and we're able to admit it, then everything's alright.
I like your blog and your book. And I've found your Permission Cards very helpful many times. Thank you.

OMG... I began my blog in Jan of this year and I ALREADY feel this way...!
(Someone visit my blog, comment, give me attention, etc...)
I'm already jaded... the illustration blog I post to only receives comments from people I comment to, what's the deal? Why am I doing this?)
Why do I feel this way, why do I need the attention? Where is the sincerity?
I love your site because it is raw and beautiful, and just maybe you would do it anyway even if no one ever responded and that's REAL.
Keep it up.
God, I'm so shallow, here's my link: http://carolynchip.blogspot.com
Haha, Carolyn

After taking a small break from blogging over the long weekend - I found myself thinking... wouldn't it be so nice to just stop? Just make soup and plant veggies and read a lot more books and just be me for me again? I sadly find that I am too reliant on my blog and its products for my livelihood now - I just wish it wasn't all tied up with the very same feelings that you have been having lately.

It is in the air. I also had the same thoughts this week and started cleaning out my list of blogs. Spring cleaning I suppose, but you got me thinking about making sure that what I spend my time reading is actually contributing in a positive way to my life. Thank you for sharing. You always express your thoughts so beautifully.

Competition aside, though, if I think about it enough, I will agree that there is a glut of very negative, draining blogs out there. Just recently I have made a concerted effort to delete all links from my own blog to any blogs that are 'issue' blogs, or political blogs or blogs that are full of a lot of hot, negative air. I'm just focusing on art and book blogs, which tend to be engaging, intelligent, fun and quite friendly. Which, if I think about it, are just the kind of people I associated with in high school. So yeah, I guess the blog world really is like high school. Even on the internet, you choose your friends wisely.

I've been having almost idential thoughts as you the past few days. I actually decided that starting next month, i will take a break from my own blog for a while. Officially, it's just a break but I really don't know if I will ever come back to it. I started my blog as a creative outlet but the blogging world has become a less and less desirable place for me to spend my time - for all the reasons you stated. I will continue to visit a VERY few select blogs (yours included, of course) but I'm looking forward to spending time in much more productive ways and living life. Thanks for sharing your thoughts. It's nice to know I'm not alone.

i admire how honest you are. it inspires me.

The world just expanded because of your courage to speak truth. Thank you for that. :-)

PS - I meant to say - just keep dancing the dance. You do it beautifully. M

Ahhh - isn't it odd how we never seem to stop feeling like we're unpopular and still at school? Well I never have anyway! I can relate completely to all you say in your final paragraph, but of course from my perspective you're already popular and heard. Now (stamping my feet) I want to be too!!

Have a good day (on or offline).

Very best wishes from Wales

Michael

what you say is true but i could never have imagined someone as gifted and as inspiring as you could also feel it. Well, I just hope you continue posting as I really enjoy your perspectives.

yes yes yes. yes to everything already said, but more importantly yes to what you are feeling, keri. i like to think that, even if no one ever read your blog, or another piece of art were ever sold, you expressed something that is wholly unique and special that is now available to the world. whether or not it is acknowledged isn't as important as the fact that it exists.

still i can't lie. creating something, letting it go , and distancing yourself from how it may be perceived--it ain't easy. but it is ultimate freedom. and that, that is priceless.

oh Lord, i sound like a mastercard ad...

What a beautiful, honest post. Thank you for sharing. Competition does seem to be a part of life. I think the key is trying to be better for yourself, meaning to make gains towards your own personal goals, and not focussing on where others are in relation to accomplishing their goals. Easier said than done, huh? Maybe by posting this awareness you have made a personal gain for yourself? You have surely got me thinking about it.

Ultimately, as an artist, the most important thing is to compete with yourself, to challenge yourself to be better, to explore new ideas and break out old comfort zones, be that painting, drawing, writing, etc. However, to deny that competition exists in the creative world is to live in a fantasyland. It's a fact of this life. If you are earning a living from your art, then you are running a business, and there is always competition in business. I have read many, many stories about artists and writers of the past, and how they competed with each other, sometimes despised each other, and said nasty things about each other (Picasso and Modigliani; Hemingway and Morley Callahan, just off the top of my head); artists are just as human and flawed as the rest of the people on the earth (if not more so!), and besides, very often these stories are very interesting; a great study of the human condition. Why should it be any different today, on the web? And competition can be a good thing, anyway, another way to force one to improve one's work, not get too complacent. Sure it can get ugly, but there's no reason why one can't be a part of the competition, and still rise above the real nastiness. Without the competition, I think it would be very, very dull.

"She is projecting all of her feelings of inadequacy, her need to be a better mother, her fears, her competitive nature, her self-contempt onto this other person". Oh how true this if for so many of us, myself included. It is amazing how the woods, or a direct expercience with life allows us to see things more clearly. I am not so sure that wanting to be heard or even popular is necessarily a "bad" thing. You are gifted with insight and you should share that gift. You inspire people and that is also the truth!

We are children of the world we live in and the internet is part of that world. What is so very valuable about you, Keri, is that you are well aware that it is part of the world and that we need to step away from the keyboard and walk in the woods; that our need to create is intrinsic to our humanity and must be addressed, and most important, that life is good. I have recently edited my bookmarks to omit all that is not supportive of these thoughts and yours remained on the list.
Your highest value is in who you are. Just beyourself and keep up the blog so you can remind us and yourself of that value.

What good timing that you put up a posting on such an issue. Even though I do not have a blog on my website , I feel the pressure to have one, to have a presence online. Lately, I have friends that had got me to join sites such as Friendster.com and suprisingly I felt the pressure to be popular via the internet, in the back of my mind not quite sure why I was doing it in the first place, and sort of hating myself for it.

Your site is always inspiring to me, so I do hope you keep posting!

Well done Keri, Reading the great blogs, like yours, gave me the insight that everyone has something unique to contribute to the conversation, and that each voice expresses the artist's essence.

There's room for everyone at the table. Doing what serves you is the key.

I was thinking of giving up my blog for the very same reason. I made it for a reason, but it has become a pressure of a different sort. I took off the feature for others to leave messages and my family got upset. The need to "say something" too. "The" (as opposed to "my") blog feels more like an outward gesture rather than the inner gesture from which it sprung. But in the end your observations are correct. The mirror is there and I am gazing into it.

I can relate all too well to your entry. I desperately miss the internet of 1992-1994, when it was sort of a barren landscape. No one was in competition, really- you were just delighted to find someone out there, and it was as if you were automatically friends with people simply because they, too, were logging on. If you found someone with matching interests, that was just icing on the very wonderful cake! I'm glad I was around for that. While I'm glad more people have access these days (sort of, trying to be gracious here...) I hate that it's become another aspect of life that I have to do "well" in. Measure my hits, make sure what I say doesn't offend people, etc. Look and feel the part. Get people to like me. Dress up and put make-up on my site so that people are attracted to it and approach it. Maybe that's why paper art and snail mail is so appealing again- the government doesn't offer a hit tracker on my postal mailbox.

I love your site Keri- I wish I could take away whatever pressure you feel to compete because in my opinion, you won the "race" a long long long time ago. The others are still on the first lap.