I remember when I started blogging. It was in high school. Back then, blogging wasn’t cool and no one had heard of it, except us angst-ridden teenagers. In LiveJournal, Blogger, Xanga (remember Xanga?) and the like, I found solace through uncensored written self-expression.

This was wonderful. It was like standing on a mountaintop, shouting into the wind. Blogging felt brave, reckless, yet necessary. Besides, it was comforting to think that someone might actually hear the teensy, lonely voice.

Now I’m 25, and it’s no longer socially acceptable to use my blog as an emotional dumping ground. (At least not unless you’re Anne Lamott, who can magically sublimate all that messy human suffering into a feast of giggles and tears.) So for the past few years, as I try to bludgeon my career into shape with this blunt instrument called grad school, I’ve been trying pretty hard to say Smart Things on my blog.

It’s tough. It’s tough because I find I don’t actually have many Smart Things to say. Or rather, I think I do but then it all comes out wrong. Somehow, in the process of writing, my thoughts stop being real thoughts, alive and wriggly and animalistic and weird, and instead become Sentences. They get packed up neatly, geometrically, like pork chops in squeaky styrofoam trays shipping off to be sold. Purged of blood and entrails and frantic movement, they’re edible but boring.

I’m sick of writing this way. Not to put too fine a point on it, but, it makes me feel far too self-promotional.

So I’m done for good with blogging that way. Ironically, I decided this today in the middle of a class taught by the venerable Jeffrey Zeldman. The class is called Selling Yourself. Oh sorry, it’s actually called Selling Design.

Anyway, here’s what Zeldman had to say about blogging:

If you blog and don’t have a readership, just turn off comments. It builds mystique. You don’t have to publicize how well or poorly you’re doing

You have to write as if it doesn’t matter, it’s the end of the world and no one’s going to read it anyway.

Just publish and don’t worry about how popular you are.

Write about what you really care about. If you’re really passionate about it, it will come across in what you write and people will care about it.

This is all good advice. And what do we usually do with good advice?

File it away and keep doing whatever.

Just kidding! This time I’m going to give it a go. Don’t worry, it’s not like I’m returning to the glory days of unabashed Livejournalism. It just means I’m going to try a little less hard to sound good, and write more about things that matter to me. This also means that I’m going to stop pretending that this is a blog about design and tech. And yeah, the comments are gonna go. If you truly want to reach me to share your thoughts, you know where to find me.

Well, that’s the end of this entry, folks. Astute, imaginary readers will note that I still haven’t answered the question posed in the title.

Here’s your answer: you’ll see.