“There’s never been a better time to have an idea. There’s never been a better time to be a writer, a singer, a speaker, a podcaster. There’s never been a better time to figure out how to help people than right now, but instead we spend an hour watching cat videos.”
—Seth Godin
A blog or a podcast is nothing more than a homing beacon for other ‘folks like us.’ It is a way of putting a signal into the world so that others can know how to find someone with whom they may share a common frequency or who may even raise their frequency. It is a way of saying, “Here I am. Here is my message. Here is my contribution. If you are drawn to this, if you can relate to this, or if you are inspired by this, join me on my journey so that we do not have to go it alone.”
The difference between these platforms and social media is in how the content is curated and who it is curated for. On social media, content is curated by the platform itself and it is curated to lead the user, as a product, toward the real customers who are the companies buying the user’s information so that they can sell to those users. On social media, just like on television or radio, the content is curated for the advertising companies to profit off of the users’ preferences, patterns, and uninterrupted presence.
A blog or podcast, on the other hand, is curated by the actual creator for him or herself and his or her potential, often niche, audience. It is specific, personal, and voluntary, a cumulative body of work, usually with a theme, a point of view, and a direction, as opposed to a never-ending stream of suggestions. It is a statement about the creator and his or her ideas, opinions, experiences, and perspective as a means of contributing to the cultural conversation in a helpful, non-invasive way that ideally sparks a movement, no matter how small, in a new and interesting direction by and for ‘folks like us.’
Note: Thank you Christian Hipsky at the Spiritual Defense blog for finding enough value in my experience and opinion to ask me a question that made me think about why I blog.
Holistic Budo: As it is in budo, so too it is in life. As it is in life, so too it is in budo.
Robert Van Valkenburgh is co-founder of Taikyoku Mind & Body and Kogen Dojo where he teaches Taikyoku Budo and Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu.
All photos by Robert Van Valkenburgh unless otherwise noted.
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