The Golden Age of the JBlogosphere. I can’t speak for anyone else, but it is one of those terms that catches my eye. Maybe it is because I am sentimental and I like to look back and see where I have been. In any case, it seems like every six months or so someone writes an introspective post about what the JBlogosphere used to be like.
The first time I remember seeing one of these posts was at The Muqata. Old Jameel mused about what he thought was the watershed moment of the JBlogosphere as being some time during 2005.
Today Treppenwitz became the latest blogger to speak of the Golden Age of the JBlogosphere. His timeline is a bit different. He refers to the golden age as being somewhere between 2003-2004.
I suppose that you could say that what this shows is that a blogger’s perspective is very much influenced by when they began blogging. I know, that wasn’t very insightful nor all that profound, but it is interesting to me for a number of reasons.
When I look back at my time in various organizations I can always pick out moments in which others spoke longingly of a time in which things were different and in their eyes better than whatever the present situation was. Sometimes it was an accurate assessment and sometimes it was a limited perspective.
I was involved with Camp Ramah for more than 20 years. If you ask people of a certain age they usually will mention my name as having been a part of the core group. But like all things those days are past. These days to find anyone who knows me you have to go back more than a couple of years. The oldest campers weren’t even born when I was roaming that place. So much time has passed that with the exception of some real old timers no one would even know my name.
It is really kind of humbling but it also offers some good lessons about life. It is a reminder that we need to live today. I don’t want to ever become one of those people whose best days are past. That doesn’t mean that I have to give up those amazing memories. I don’t have to pretend that they didn’t happen, I just have to maintain my perspective about who I am today and who I am going to be tomorrow.
Flipping back to blogging, I have to agree with David that there is a certain intimacy in the Jblogosphere that has faded. Eighteen months ago I asked people How Many Blogs Do You Read? because even in those days it was getting to be hard to try and keep up.
The JBlogosphere has exploded. Even if I had 10 hours a day to devote to blogging I couldn’t keep up. There are only so many blogs to read and even though a number of my favorites have closed up shop there is always another to take their place.
I guess what I am really saying is that after three years of running The Shack I hope that my posts are better than what they were. I hope that there is growth and that it continues. I don’t want to find myself in a place where I look back and say that the best I had has come and gone.
The day I come to that conclusion will truly be the time when I hang up my keyboard. Hopefully that day never comes.
