how to write a blog

Someone from the local African dance/drum community has actually read my blog! I never even thought they would. I am not really close friends with anyone there, I just show up and dance, sometimes have some deep personal conversations, but never as a long term friend, rather just a temporary confidante. I am a healer, remember.

It is good people are interested as to what I am writing. Not that it matters, because the comments were only really negative :) I guess one way to fame is by being contraversial :) I was never famous for being too diplomatic and not speaking up. Having a blog that people can read and have their own reactions because they are in it is something to watch for, isn't it. First, being kind, and second, egos are fragile. Perhaps it is always good to stick to abstract ideas and skip mentioning any people.

It seems like the complaints about my blog came from someones who already had issues with me and will misinterpret anything about me anyways. Some persons who complained used to be friendly towards me and then suddenly stopped, for no apparent reason to me.
On their side, they need to understand that sometimes we don't get back what we wanted. I have fed my cat for years and only now can I pet her. There are all kinds of different cats... Also, their circle is a tight circle of youngsters sharing experiences and I am just an outsider. I do not care to socialize much, it is a much younger crowd and their interests are amusing to watch from the side, but boring to participate in. During the last camp, what was fun to them is to get naked at night and swing off ropes and go giggling half drunk on the beach. I just yawned at that and went to sleep.... I am way older and what interests me is boring to them. Out of all the profound and very deep articles I wrote on my blog, they just could understand one thing... and that one thing made them upset. Well, seems like my stuff is a little too much for them. I don't think they understand that I am oldie :) On my side, I notice and appreciate the effort that they put to say hi to me. Unfortunately, in the last months I didn't have the energy to fake some little social niceties which I should have. That's my bad. This summer my life is at a different place and I should be able to put a little more effort into making sure that I show more kindness. Because, I do genuinely feel it. It's nice to have all these people to dance and drum and have fun with. I appreciate them being there. I can simply avoid the ones who picked on me before (luckily they don't anymore - I guess I made it clear I did not like it) and show more friendliness towards those who are friendly with me.

The comments about my blog came from much younger persons for whom this African stuff is a hobby. They obviously weren't aware of the business side nor the preserve-the-culture side nor the learning side of our common endeavor called African classes. Nobody really thanked me for advertising the classes and activities on my African activities web page and in the blog, which is worth many hours of work and about $1000 in money, at least, nor for me attending regularly and paying full price for classes, for which I spend about $200 per month, and me driving in from far away to attend paid performances, posting flyers, advertising by word of mouth, etc. - and thus supporting the community. Without members like me, there is no community, and there is no growth. If the existing community wants perfect members completely to their liking, it will be a closed clique and will stay small and stunted.

This is an interesting question. Every community wants members who are totally dedicated and enthused and hm well - indoctrinated. Everyone wants dedicated followers. However, a healthy community needs to allow something else.

Men are really good at this. They are straight forward and it is easy to deal with them. Women are a lot more complicated. I always hang out with more guys - in electrical engineering, in martial arts, in tracking. This is the first time ever that I am surrounded by lots of women and a few, often rotten spoiled and flirty guys :) Engineers and martial artists are a lot more reliable, solid, homey guys and that's why they get married early and typically stay married with kids and you seldom see them around, they stay home with their families. The drummer guys (and tracker guys too) are a lot more iffy lot and tend to just float around doing as they please. Trackers are not womanizers, just irresponsible. Drummers by the nature of their business hang around lots of ladies shaking their butts in front of them and the temptation is great to go for it. And most of them do. I wrote them off a long time ago as relationship material. After the last 3 tracker boyfriends, I wrote trackers off too :) Well, there is still the other wilderness mentoring school, those guys are solid and worth checking out.

Perhaps it is time to go back into more martial arts and the other wilderness school :) Maybe that's my ticket to actually getting married :)`Now that's another tricky question too - dating someone from the same classes is to be avoided imo in case it doesn't work out. I refused people from my dojo asking me out. WEll, I didn't like to go out with them anyways. Even if I did, being stuck "at work" with an ex is definitely not fun. So where do we find dates? The date has to be someone we know well enough so that there are no mistakes, but yet it cannot be someone too close to home. Hm, someone from another dojo or another wilderness school would work... That's entirely new topic. Stay tuned!