The Problem with an Open Mind

So, I’ve told my web pals and reminded those with us since the print days about why I like eclectic content.

But there is a dark side to this approach when the internet is thrown into the mix and it knocks me totally off-kilter on what sorts of information to select to share with you all. The net is overwhelming.

There are so many people. So many of them probably have cool and interesting and good aspects to them. But there are only so many hours in the day. Once you have done your work, your art, and your laundry, how much time can you truly devote to getting to know other people in a meaningful and genuine way?

There are so many sites. The smallest micro-niche of an interest probably has a site devoted to it. Want a site with photos of women who are both goth punk-looking and wearing rubber? Got one.

So, if you have broad interests and a true curiosity about the world around you, the options quickly prove boggling and paralyzing. I used to feel like it was possible for me to be aware of, and have an opinion on, every goth-industrial music act around. But, now that there are bands across the globe with MP3s on MySpace and thousands of other sites, I don’t feel like I could even sift through just that one genre.

Over the course of the past week, I got tons of cool and creatively-satisfying work done and went out on the town and had some fun as well. I also meant to go to a big fashion convention with Forrest Black and Blue Blood hottie junk princess this past weekend, but I just kinda spaced on it. The weekend before, I wanted to go to a big science fiction convention, partly because my pal (and Blue Blood writer) Thomas S. Roche from Eros Zine was in town to go, and partly because I feel like I could really explore West Coast fandom much more.

So the multifarious nature of my interests leaves me feeling always left out and off-track. I think this is kind of a normal way for people like me to feel. If you are not a narrow person, pretty basic exploration of the world around you quickly becomes crushingly too much.

Which brings me to my point. It is difficult for me, as an editor, to determine how to best serve you all on BlueBlood.net. With the hundreds of thousands of you who visit this site every month, I feel like I ought to have more to say. I feel like I ought to be publishing a whole lot of like-minded authors again too.

Not that I don’t have a lot to express. But I’ve always written and edited for an audience in the past. Even with the very first issue of Blue Blood in print, when I wasn’t sure how many people with much in common with me were out there, I was still selecting what to share with the audience based on who I hoped was out there. Even, when I was in college, and founded a sex-positive feminist adventure magazine, I knew the audience was going to include some pissed-off people, but I kept them in mind when editing the publication.

So, anyway, I feel a little lost in the cacaphony of the web. If you are like me and have moved through many subcultures and areas of interest in your quest for self-actualization, then I bet you feel a little drowned as well. If you’ve got subjects you’d like to see covered more on BlueBlood.net, I’d love for you to post suggestions here or send me a message or submit your own articles on what you feel would be of interest to everyone here.

At the end of the day, for better or worse, I still think of myself first and foremost as a writer. Sometimes, between spending so much time online and living in glittering bookless Hollywood, I forget. But I always come back to it. So expect to see a lot more of my words in the near future. And, if you feel like the subject matter is too eclectic and you need to get your mind opened up a bit more, you can always head on over to BlueBlood.com for high quality erotic art photography and other sexy stuff.

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Posted by Amelia G on September 5, 2006. Filed under Blue Blood. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry