Hugh Hollowell

On the old bank calendars we used to get every November all of the holidays were in red. I remember being excited because we did not have to go to school on the red letter days.

Today I got to do something I have dreamed of doing all my adult life. It was exactly like I had hoped it would be, only more so. I was so very nervous, but I think it did not matter in the larger scheme of things. No matter how often I had played the movie in my head about what it would be like, nothing could have prepared me for the real thing. And when it was over, I sobbed like a baby and then was elated the rest of the day.

I know by now you are curious as to what the thing was and I hope you will understand why I have decided not to share it; it was so very personal. I just wanted those of you who care about me and read this to know that today was a very good day.

What is the best thing you ever had happen to you? Was it as good as you had hoped it would be? Did it go as smoothly as you had hoped? Were you satisfied, or did it make you want to reach for more?

Just a quick note to let everyone who cares know that for the next four days I will be on the road and will largely be out of pocket. Things should be back to normal on Thursday of next week.

I will tell you all about the trip when I get back… I may have sporadic internet access; if I can, I will post from the road.

Ya’ll better behave yourselves while I am gone…

Several people have asked about how I got involved in blogging. I have been blogging several places for a while now and the question is a bit complex… basically, a great friend had a blog and I was fascinated. (For more of the gritty details about how I met Jen and all that, I refer you to my other blog) Even so, it was a good 2 years after I met Jen that I started blogging… and I was hooked!

People blog for different reasons… some blog to make money (easier said than done), some blog to build their profile, some blog to just get it out there and have fun, some blog to let their Mom know they are eating regularly… many different reasons.

I have a business oriented blog that I make some money off of, but I am not going to be able to retire anytime soon or anything. The main reason I blog in that category is to build my profile. I have several book ideas in that big old head of mine and I have a much better chance of selling them if I am a known quantity. Additionally, it gets my name out and has huge networking opportunities. For example, I have exchanged maybe half a dozen emails with Seth Godin over the last year or so, just because of blogging.

But blogging with a purpose is tiring. It is work, to tell the truth. As I talked about over here, I recently made some changes. I felt I had to for several reasons… I was getting burned out; I have some HUGE life changes coming up in the next few months and I need some space (more about this later. Seriously, I will tell you later. Nosey…) and just plain old life management.

It was why I started this blog: just to have a place to vent and unwind, a way to let Mom know I am alive even though I have not called, a way to connect with old friends. I needed a scratch pad where anything is fair game, where I had no agenda, where I could brain dump (sometimes, the brain dumps me…).

Anyway, If you want to know more about blogging: how to set up a blog, tools to use, what sites to go to for more information, etc. then fear not, because I intend to create a resource page on this site so all the blogging how-to info will be all in one place.

Over the last two weeks I have taken a break from this blog to examine my options, to decide the direction I want to take, to see where I want to go with it. I was not happy with where I was and I did not know what to do about it.

In the past, I followed a textbook blog start; I linked to everybody, I worked trackbacks, I posted often, I commented like crazy on everyone else’s blog, I wrote posts on blogging, on Wordpress, I wrote numbered posts… everything they tell you to do. And you know what? It worked.

I had a blog that often had 5-10 comments or more a post, a blog that was linked to often, one that broke the Technoratti 100K in about 30 days, people emailed me with questions, they sought my advice… and I was miserable. I was having no fun, there was no joy in it.

So I took a few weeks off. For 2 weeks, I did not post much of anything here. Heck, I did not even look at the admin panel for a solid week.

I still blogged, just not here. For the last 2 weeks, I have blogged for fun. Remember that? Fun. Where you just wrote and put it out there, and it was not about page views, it was not about RSS readers or getting links… it was just about putting it out there and seeing what happens.

So for the last 2 weeks, I just blogged. I blogged about old friends, relationships that did not work out, memories circulating around my head, my faith and even mentioned genocide in Darfur. No common theme, no rhyme or reason, just having fun.

You know what?

It was a blast! I had so much fun… it was a joy to write each day, having no pressure on me, no worries about RSS subscribers, no agenda… just fun.

I decided I could not do this any more.

I had decided that today was going to be my last post here. I was going to announce that I was bowing out of “professional blogging” and was going to go back to having fun. My posting had been sporadic of late: Surely I had lost all my RSS readers and had no doubt killed any progress I had made. If the key to success is daily posting, then I had screwed the pooch big time. If the key is linking to everyone and his brother, then I was over. If the key is commenting on everyone else’s blogs, then I was toast.

Then a funny thing happened: I checked my stats.

Last night, I checked my stats and noticed I was still about where I was when I was posting regularly. Huh! Then I checked my Alexa rank and noticed it had improved dramatically over the last month. Hmmm. The I checked my feeds and I have to tell you, I cringed as I waited for the window to open, waiting to see how my inattention had destroyed my hard won readership. The page opened and… I had actually gained readers since the last time I checked 2 weeks ago. The kicker was when I checked Technoratti and saw that I was about to break the 50K mark, moving about 10K since I had quit careing. People were still out there linking to the content.

I had broken every rule in the book and had not hurt myself at all. If anything, I was probably better off than I had been.

This changed everything. I was up all night thinking about the implications for this blog, my business and me.

Here is the deal:

I am Politically Incorrect. I live life on my own terms and have taken great pains to structure my life to be a certain way because I like it that way. When I started blogging, I somehow forgot that. Instead, I did exactly what everyone else did, and so I got exactly what everyone else got. Well, no more.

Here is what you can expect from now on.

Fewer, better posts.

You are busy. You are running a small business or you wish you were. I could post a fluffy post here everyday (and have in the past) but honestly, does the web need more clutter? Do you need another post to read in your feed? Wouldn’t your time be better spent with your family, your employees or on deciding your goals?

I know mine would. So, effective now, no more short cute posts. No more memes. No link trains. Very little speed linking. (If I just cannot help myself, I may speed link in an aside).

I am 35 years old. Conventional wisdom says I have about 40 more summers, 40 more season opening games, 40 more Christmases. In view of that, I just do not have the time to crank out posts just to increase my post count.

More on topic posts

In the past, I have talked about everything from blogging to internet marketing to poetry… No more. This blog is about working for yourself and living life on your own terms. That is what I will write about. If you want to know what SEO plugin to use, there are any number of blogs that talk about that… this is no longer one of them.

Writing geared toward readers, not bloggers.

Sometimes I think we bloggers write for other bloggers. I admit, I have done it. After all, we want that link love, we need the validation, and we need to increase our page views… bullfish. I am done with it.

If you like what I write and want to link to it, I am glad and hope you will. But I will be damned if I am going to beg for links, write link bait or Digg bait. I just do not have that sort of time… I am here to help people realize they can change their lives, not to build content for social network sites.

More Resources

The site will be changing a bit over the next few weeks in order to provide you with more resources, more tools and more knowledge to use your business to take charge of your life and to help you live life on your own terms.

* * * * * * * *

The current plan calls for a post about every 4-6 days on average. If you are afraid you might miss something, you may want to subscribe to my full RSS feed to make sure you stay informed.

If you have suggestions as to how to make the site better, have ideas for topics, want to guest blog on the site or have just missed me and want to say hi, the comments are open.

I had a brilliant post planned today. It was brilliant, it was well thought out, it was lucid and cogent. And it is gone.

My ADD kicked in and distracted me and it is gone, gone, gone. One day I may remember what it was I wanted to say, but that day will probably not be today.

Sorry.

I am fairly apolitical, so fear not, gentle reader; you do not have to worry about this becoming a political rant blog. That is just not how I roll. However, even though I am on a low information diet, I still am inundated with the propaganda from the upcoming Presidential election here in the US.

Have you ever noticed that whenever politicians talk about moral issues, they inevitably mean homosexuality or abortion? As if those were the only moral issues out there.

I mean, really. Yesterday I read a great blogpost about the genocide in Darfur; it was cogent, well thought out and for the first time, I fully understood the root causes of the problem. So of course some ass hat comes along and leaves a comment to the effect that Darfur is nothing compared to the genocide in America because of abortion. Never mind that the post was not about abortion. Or America. No sirree, that did not slow down this guy; he was going to get his point across.

Do not get me wrong:

I think no rational person thinks abortion is a good thing. Even the most adamant pro-choice people I know think abortion is regrettable. I would prefer that abortions did not happen, but I also wish there was not lying, cheating or stealing on the planet, either. And, I realize that if I want to say I am pro-life, I had better be ready to adopt a kid or help out some unmarried mothers. If you just point out what is wrong but do nothing to fix it, you are just bitching.

You know what?

Every day, 18,000 children die from malnutrition. Every day, 850 million people go to bed hungry. It is not like they are dying of AIDS or some other incurable disease. We have the food. We have the stuff to fix the problem, yet we do not, so children die. That might be a moral issue.

Or how about this:

We have a death penalty in this country; almost every person who is for it cites the Old Testament law of “an eye for an eye“. People must pick the parts of the Bible they like and ignore what they do not, because the Bible also prescribes the death penalty for bestiality (Exodus 22:19); adultery (Leviticus 20:10); homosexuality (Leviticus 20:13), being a false prophet (Deuteronomy 13:5), prostitution (Leviticus 21:9) and rape (Deuteronomy 22:24-25). Hmmm, some of those might hit close to home.

Since 1973, 124 people were convicted, went through the appeal process and went to death row, only to be released because they were later proven innocent. 124. And those are the ones we found out about before it was too late. On average, they spent 9 years in prison for something they did not do. Here is a list of people who died at the hands of the state, yet later strong evidence turned up proving their innocence. Ooops.

Would it be hard to say we can only use the death penalty on the basis of DNA evidence? We have the technology. Is not preventing people from dieing wrongly at the hands of the state that is supposed to protect them a moral issue?

The list continues…

• The Homeless
• Education
• Health care
• The aftermath of Katrina
• The environment
• Sending our children to die in a foreign land so our oil supplies are protected
• The Sudanese Refugees
• The plight of the Iraqis now that we have “helped” them.

Oh yes, and maybe while we are at it, we could talk about the morality of allowing 100,000 people a year to die in Darfur at the hands of their own government. If this was happening in a place where the victim’s skin was white there is no way we would put up with this. If you doubt it, ask yourself if this would be allowed in Poland or Germany or France. Nope, the international community would put a stop to it in a heartbeat. But Darfur is over in Africa, so we do not have to worry or even think about those 400,000 people who have died.

Morality is about being Moral, not just about homosexuality or abortion.

I know a guy, let’s call him Steve (his name is sooo not Steve, but work with me here, OK?). Actually, to be more accurate, I knew him about 20 years ago.

We were inseparable, Steve and I were. We got in trouble together, we chased girls together, we almost got thrown in jail together. Very good times, indeed. When it came time to graduate High School, I went in the Marines, he went to College.

He got married, had kids, had a divorce, got remarried, had more kids, changed jobs about 4 times, has a huge house, a country club membership and probably an ulcer for all I know. The reason I know all this is not because we have kept in touch, for we have not. I had not heard a word from him in the last 20 years. However, as you certainly know by now, gentle reader, I have been feeling a bit nostalgic of late and so I looked him up.

Man, it was good talking to old Steve. He howled (literally howled) when I called him. We laughed, we joked, talked about old times, played the who-is-where-now game, got caught up on marriages, divorces, jobs, kids and so on… and then the phone went silent. We had run out of things to talk about. It was almost like talking to a complete stranger.

It turns out we have zero in common any more. We are miles apart politically, we have different religions, he is very yuppie and I am very… NOT. We hemmed and hawed for about another 10 minutes, promised to talk more often, invited each other to our respective houses and got off the phone, each of us secretly relieved.

You see, we no longer had any context to place the friendship in. The structure was still there, but the things that had made it all work were gone. Our lives had changed, and we had changed, but the friendship was static and as out of place in this new world as a 2007 Corvette in a classic car show.

Luckily, this does not always happen. I have found many friends over the last few months and for the most part, the comfort is still there, the structure is sound and both sides are working to hang new memories on the old framework.

As you may have been able to tell, I have been thinking a lot about the past lately, an indulgence I rarely grant myself. I am more future based; I always believed you could do nothing about the past, so why think about it?

I turned 35 last month. I woke up and realized I was 35 and chunkier than I would like, balder than I would like, more alone than I would like… 2 years older than Jesus when he died, two years younger than Martin Luther King Jr. was when he died and I feel like I have accomplished Jack Sh*t.

Perhaps it is normal to be introspective at this point in my life… how did I get here, what about the choices I have made. So I turn 35, all my old friends come out of the woodwork and now my ADD is working overtime with all these memories I had subliminated in my efforts to get on with the business of being successful.

Remembering stuff like…

• The cute girl who sent me a note my first day of class in 5th Grade (Coach Suddoth’s (sp?) Homeroom). It was my first day in public school, I think I was the only kid in the class that had not gone to school there the year before so I was the object of much staring and whispering. She (who shall remain nameless, but I know she reads this blog) smiled at me, sent me a note asking my name, being nice to me when no one else was.
• In the height of the 1st Gulf War, impersonating an officer and invading the Navy barracks with my friend Dennis… We were lucky we were not shot.
• Wondering if Joe was gay (and now wondering why it mattered).
• My Mom driving me to the 16th birthday party of the girl mentioned above (and then she stayed!)
• If Joey ever knew, and if he did, did he forgive me?
• Memorizing all the DI lines from Full Metal Jacket.
• The smell of grass after you cut it
• The note I got from my Dad while in Boot Camp telling me he was proud of me.
• Sharpening my pencil in Mrs. Dye’s class (long story, and I would blush if I had to write the whole thing out).
• Learning the names of all the NFL teams from Heath’s lunch box.
• Quoting Shakespeare in Physics class… Reggie laughing.
• Being painfully shy.
• The horrible pain I felt when I realized she did not care about me at all, I was just a way to go to the prom.
• Learning to tie my Sebagos the cool way.
• Pegging my Jeans.
• Parachute Pants.
• Laura wondering about bleach.
• Marithé François Girbaud. I thought I was so cool.
• Getting a black eye at the homecoming game.
• Being maybe 8 years old, making mudpies with my friend Denise, who later changed her name.
• Woody B. Hard
• The African country of Djbutie.
• Coach Taylor’s Rules.
• The day I realized that my best female friend was attractive (I had honestly never noticed it before).

sighhh…

Sometimes, it all seems almost like a movie I watched… not real at all.

John Lennon said that life is what happens while we make other plans. I have surely felt that this week.

Over the last week, I have been in touch with 4 old friends, none of whom I have talked to or heard anything from in over 10 years. As I have talked and emailed with them, the problem of how to sum up 10-15 years of your life in a few short sentences comes up.

Well, I have to talk about the marriage and how it ended, no way around that. And several of them knew me when I was entertaining ideas of entering the clergy, so I have to explain that.

Over the last 10 years, I have moved from an upwardly mobile yuppie wannabe to an urban beat bohemian business person (if you think that is confusing to think about, you should try living like that!). While my faith means much more to me now than it ever did, I have moved far, far away from proselytizing. I shudder at the folks I turned off with my early zeal. Now, I am more worried about how I live than my spiritual “body count”.

I want to tell them how I have never had kids, but there was that miscarriage; how I cried and how I have always felt a bit cheated. I want to tell them how I almost married another lady that had 3 kids… how much I loved those kids, how much they meant to me and how it almost killed me to give up on that relationship.

More than anything, it is hard to communicate just who you are now, and why that is better or worse than who you were when they knew you. Then you find out they are having the same problem explaining who they are now to you.