David’s posterous

Here on my posterous blog I plan to break every law in the rulebook of successful blogging. 

What is successful blogging?
The mainstream blogging community has one clear criterion for what makes a successful blog.  It's such a deep rooted assumption that it's rarely stated.  The criterion is this:

Countless blog posts have been written on attracting new readers and increasing subscriber numbers.  Few bloggers question why having thousands of readers is a Good Thing.  One lone voice who does question the assumption is marketing guru Seth Godin - and even he reckons that bloggers should aim for a tribe of 1,000 'true followers'.

Rule #1.0 of successful blogging:

How I will break Rule #1.0
By redefining what success means in blogging.  For me, a successful blog is one that fully engages all its readers.  I would rather have ten readers who fully engage in conversation with me than ten thousand readers leaving hundreds of 'great post!' comments.

How to build a successful blog
There is one simple rule to building a successful blog with high readership.  This is Rule #2.0 of successful blogging:

There's debate over whether an untapped niche or a crowded niche is best.  If a niche is crowded, it proves there are lots of readers to go around.  If a niche is untapped, you could engage a whole new readership who have never looked at a blog before.

Either way, the niche is the important thing.

Choosing a niche has two rules:

How I will break Rule #2.0
I have a major problem with Rule #2.0.  It clashes with Rule #2.1 and Rule #2.2.  What I am passionate about doesn't fit neatly into a niche.  It doesn't even fit into two or three niches. What I love about life is life itself - and this is too far reaching and incomprehensible to squash into a neatly defined 'About' page.

Rule 2.1 I will keep.  Rule 2.2 is meaningless unless you're interested in blogging as a business.

What will this blog be about?
The diversity and array of human experience and what it means to be human.  In academic terms, this means literature, psychology, sociology, anthropology, economics, theology, politics, history - to name just a few subjects.  In real life terms, this means reading books, baking cakes, studying body language, telling stories, starting conversations, and loving people.

Sometimes, when I am deeply intertwined with my creative self, I write down lists of everything I love in this world.  Here are a few, and be warned - posts about any of these could appear on my blog.

• Doodles
• Theology
• Social Justice
• Values and Ethics
• Quotes
• The sea, rocky cliffs, and sandy beaches
• Coffee and Coffee Shops
• Real Ale and Pubs
• Storytelling
• Jazz Music
• Clowns
• Family & Friends
• Baking
• Listening
• Finding a bargain
• Travelling
• Poetry
• Studying
• Saxophones & Trumpets
• Photography
• Exercise
• Laughing
• Discovering new ideas
• Children
• Literature
• Sunshine
• Jesus Christ
• God
• Politics
• People watching
• Good wine
• Nature
• The Environment & Ecosystems
• Curry
• Chocolate
• Nostalgia
• Philosophy
• Church
• Films
• Anarchism
• Technology
• Walking
• Adventure
• Spirituality
• Thunderstorms
• Daydreaming
• Watching the world go by
• Writing songs

Some words that make my world a brighter place:

• Curiosity
• Beauty
• Playfulness
• Hope
• Compassion
• Joy
• Tradition
• Faith
• Creativity
• Clarity
• Inspiring
• Freedom
• Mercy
• Community
• Imagination
• Humility
• Grace
• Love
• Sharing
• Enchantment
• Magic
• Belief
• Wonder
• Peace
• Gifts

From my final post at beplayful.org:

"I am here to join the conversation, to let myself be vulnerable and to make close friends who challenge and transform me.  And to invite others to join me in this conversation."

I'm here at posterous. I tweet on twitter, I flick on flickr (at least I think I do. I post photos there, anyway), and I'm planning to increase my comments on other people's blogs.

So, please, make yourselves at home.  And if there's not a conversation here you'd like to join, why not start one?

Money is a struggle for me. 

My passion is for people: the vulnerable, the oppressed, the excluded and the forgotten.  My calling is into the ministry of reconciliation.  When I was 20, I wrote down my life's mission: "To liberate and empower the oppressed through reconciliation with the oppressor".  I'm still working out what this means, but I know the next step on the journey.  A Masters degree in Reconciliation Studies.

Masters degrees are expensive.  Tuition fees run into thousands of pounds, and no help is available from the government for living costs.  To study a Masters degree, you need money.

My wife and I both have very-slightly-above minimum wage jobs.  After paying rent, tax, and other bills, there's barely enough left at the end of each month to pay for a trip out to the cinema, let alone to put money away into savings.

I'm fortunate enough to have saved some money during my undergraduate degree; I have enough to pay the tuition for a Masters degree.  But how will we pay for living expenses with me studying and just one of us working?

My Ingenious Plan
After much soul searching, I had a brilliant flash of inspiration: I'd make money online.  So I set up a blog (beplayful.org) with the aim of selling e-products such as ebooks and courses on playfulness.  I could teach people how to be playful (which undoubtedly makes the world a better place), and through that I'd be able to pay for my studies.

Deep down, however, I could feel something wasn't quite right.

I once spent $40 on an eBook about freelance writing.  Not only did I feel dirty and ashamed afterwards for having spent so much money on a .pdf document, but the book was littered with spelling and grammatical errors.  Forgivable, perhaps, in a book about keeping fit, but in a book about writing?

Could I really charge people $40 for a .pdf document, and wake up in the morning feeling good about myself?

These doubts plagued me, and my enthusiasm for beplayful.org waned.  I started posting less and less frequently.

When I dared to think about it deeply, I realised something more profound was wrong with my money-making scheme.  The idea of making money at the expense of others violates my spiritual identity, my truest self, who I am at the core of my being.

It wasn't just my own money making scheme I took issue with.  I began to see that making money is always at the expense of other people.

Liquid, Money, & Power
Let me explain.  Money is like a liquid.  That's why a business with lots of spare cash is said to have high liquidity.

People who have money can control the flow of this liquid.  As such, they are relatively powerful.  People without money have to do their damnedest to catch any leaking droplets as the flow of the liquid passes them by.  As such, they are relatively powerless.

Money, then, leads to inequalities of power.

Money also has real effects in the physical world.  Money is tied to resources.  For example, because I have some money, I can feed myself, and I have a roof above my head.  Because money is tied to resources, it gives control over resources.

So those with money can choose who gets the resources, and who goes without.  Hence, the rich countries (such as the US and the UK), and the people who live there mostly live cushy lives, whilst the majority of the world live daily on the verge of starvation.  The rich control the liquid, and they make sure it stays with them.

I have to ask myself: can I honestly say to myself that I am standing up for the marginalized and the oppressed if I am buying into the system that leaves them powerless and oppressed to such an extent that I am choosing to make money?

Money as All Consuming
Here's another of my struggles with money.  Whenever I decide that it might be acceptable to make some money, the desire for more money consumes me.  I stay up on my computer half the night reading blogs about making money.  I search all over the internet for the 'final answer' that will make my million.  I lose all perspective on how much money would be enough.  Even considering the idea that making some money could be okay plants a seed of greed inside me that leaves me wanting more, and more, and more.

I forget that I enjoy reading books, listening to the radio, knitting, and writing creatively.  I forget that I have a wife, a family, and friends who value me and my gifts.  I start to measure my value with regards to how much money I have, I treat my skills and talents as means to an end - i.e. money.

And ultimately, I end up forgetting why I wanted money in the first place - to have enough to live whilst I study at university.

The Question that Started It All
Finally, I come to the question that prompted this post: "What if you could choose "seeking a better world" *and* also have riches to use to help make the world better?"

For me, the better world would be a world without money.  A world in which no single person or country is able to hog resources because of the flow of this thing that doesn't really exist.  After all, money is only a figment of the human imagination, albeit a heavily ingrained figment.

And the riches thing.  Everyone has the riches they need to make the world a better place.  Everyone has the capacity to love, to forgive, to cherish every person that they meet.  Everyone is capable of kindness, sharing, and empathy.  And behind even the dourest frowning face is a playful spirit waiting to be let loose.

These riches are already mine.  Thank you, to Havi, for the question, for helping me to see this truth.

This singer/songwriter is amazing.

     

Click here to download:

Havent_you_always_wanted_a_mon.zip (1370 KB)

This is monkey.

Name: Monkey
Date of Birth: Unknown.  Circa January 2007
Occupation: subversively advertising PG tips.  Posing on David's PC.  Freelancer's friend.
Purchase price: 50p at St. Vincent's Charity Shop.  Also available on eBay, or free with out of date packets of PG tips.
Hobbies: Zen Buddhism.  Monkey is widely acknowledge as a Zen Master, although he has yet to meet the Dalai Lama, which he is greatly miffed about.

Advantages:

• Takes the edge off freelance loneliness.  Someone to talk to and share ideas with.
• Stays silent when you want him to.
• Humour factor.

Disadvantages:

• Cannot talk back.  Only replies heard are in David's head.
• Was probably given birth to in a sweatshop by an exploited person.
• Subversively advertises PG Tips.  PG Tips is not Fair Trade.
• His feet get in the way when he sits on the monitor.

Oxford University academic Dr Justin Barrett contends in a BBC Radio 4 interview that children are born believing in God.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today/newsid_7745000/7745514.stm

I'm starting this new blog on posterous for three reasons.

Collecting ideas and stories
I'm going to use posterous as a place to store inspiring ideas, stories, quotes and pictures that I discover online and in my daily reading.

Expressive Freedom
I love blogging at beplayful.org, but it is a blog with clear constraints on the content that I post.  I'd like another blog where I can post any and all thoughts and ideas that cross my mind.

Life Updates
What does the everyday life of a freelance writer, storyteller and peacemaker look like?  Find out as I share on my new blog here.