Yesterday marked a milestone for me with my blog. When I started this journey earlier this year, choosing to spend time researching in the evenings and putting together a blog that was a reflection of my feelings and beliefs that I could put out a few times a week, I didn't expect it to last. I expected it to become a week long pipe dream that would end abruptly and fail to grow legs of longevity.
What I found over time, however, is that the blog became a way for me to channel my thoughts, frustrations, and other feelings through my fingers and into words. It has become a way for me to vent, and for me to present not only opinion but facts to those who don't always look deep enough to find the facts in stories. If you are a regular reader, you have probably noticed that over time my posts have become more emotional. I think that is in large part because my emotions on major subjects, especially politics in the United States, have become much stronger.
Yesterday I published my 50th Blog, and I have a total of 133 compiled pages of blogs to date, just since the end of April. That is an achievement I never thought I would attain. In looking at the analytics of my blog, I see that as of today, my blog has been read in 13 countries around the world. It has been read in the United States, Germany, Poland, Spain, France, Peru, Vietnam, the Philippines, Russia, Ukraine, Indonesia, Canada, and the United Kingdom.
It's insane to think that my words have essentially travelled the world over the past 3 months.
Now, what am I truly looking to gain from this blog other than it being an outlet for my own thoughts? It is really about driving thought and discussion in society. All too often I see arguments online where people are really discussing politics in a way people discuss religion.
What I mean by that is that many of the discussions are rooted in opinion and faith rather than fact. When you discuss religion, it is all about how you were raised and what you believe and have faith in. When you discuss politics, the basis for most views should be grounded in facts with some personal emotion.
I have seen a lack of facts in many of the discussions I have witnessed and been a part of, and I have seen a lack of passion from people who are frankly sick of hearing about politics and have given up caring. There is a big problem with that from my perspective because it can lead to many negative things in a society that needs nothing but more positivity today.
People need to stand up and be passionate. People need to take an extra few minutes every day to not only educate themselves on the news of the day around the world, but to educate themselves on the facts. Having an opinion that is based on false or misleading information is having a useless opinion. Educating yourself by spending a bit of time researching the facts of a subject before posting memes or other things on your social media and before jumping into a political discussion to drive a point is important.
We cannot drive change through emotion alone. We need to utilize the facts, both historical and current, to form a basis for the changes we feel need to be enacted. Take the political spectrum today for instance. There is a very large contingent of voters on the right (about a third) who are so vehemently devoted to Donald Trump that Trump could do just about anything and not lose their votes. Why is that? That is because those people were so emotionally upset with their situations before the 2016 campaigns started, and they saw Donald Trump, a man who in their minds spoke what was on his mind, bucked the system, and spoke about making AMERICA GREAT AGAIN! Trump appealed to their emotional states, and he didn't need facts to bring them to his side. He simply needed to be different, talk about how the establishment was treating them horribly, and have a catch phrase or two to keep them excited.
Still today, when I have conversations with some of these devoted Trump supporters, those conversations contain facts coming from me to explain why I feel Trump shouldn't be the President, and only emotion coming from them. They live in emotion because the facts simply don't support any sort of positive narrative for the future. The President continues to lie nearly every time he opens his mouth, he continues to denigrate our allies around the world and speak more positively about dictators, he continues to run a campaign to smear the major investigation going on by spreading lies and mistruths, and he continues to use his bully pulpit to denigrate any number of people, countries and businesses. All the while, that 1/3 of supporters is still there, standing beside him every step of the way, because facts don't matter like they should.
We all need to stand up, demand change, have debates and discussions, choose our candidates wisely (because we have the power to do that), stop voting straight ticket, lift each other up instead of knock each other down, actively listen to each other, and find compromises based both in emotion and fact that will be best for our country moving forward.
This blog is my way of starting the discussion, and my way of hopefully touching a handful of people out there who will read it and become more active in politics and become more passionate about being involved and become more grounded in the facts rather than simply emotion.
People should be talking, and I hope in some small way my blog will have an impact on at least one person, if not more. I will continue on posting blogs on a regular basis, and will continue on being so very grateful that those of you out there who regularly read my blog, or are reading it for the first time today, are offering my words a bit of time in your lives. I am grateful for that and thank you all for the time you have taken to read my posts.
Thank you, and I look forward to posting a similar message after my 100th blog milestone.
DUNK
What I found over time, however, is that the blog became a way for me to channel my thoughts, frustrations, and other feelings through my fingers and into words. It has become a way for me to vent, and for me to present not only opinion but facts to those who don't always look deep enough to find the facts in stories. If you are a regular reader, you have probably noticed that over time my posts have become more emotional. I think that is in large part because my emotions on major subjects, especially politics in the United States, have become much stronger.
Yesterday I published my 50th Blog, and I have a total of 133 compiled pages of blogs to date, just since the end of April. That is an achievement I never thought I would attain. In looking at the analytics of my blog, I see that as of today, my blog has been read in 13 countries around the world. It has been read in the United States, Germany, Poland, Spain, France, Peru, Vietnam, the Philippines, Russia, Ukraine, Indonesia, Canada, and the United Kingdom.
It's insane to think that my words have essentially travelled the world over the past 3 months.
Now, what am I truly looking to gain from this blog other than it being an outlet for my own thoughts? It is really about driving thought and discussion in society. All too often I see arguments online where people are really discussing politics in a way people discuss religion.
What I mean by that is that many of the discussions are rooted in opinion and faith rather than fact. When you discuss religion, it is all about how you were raised and what you believe and have faith in. When you discuss politics, the basis for most views should be grounded in facts with some personal emotion.
I have seen a lack of facts in many of the discussions I have witnessed and been a part of, and I have seen a lack of passion from people who are frankly sick of hearing about politics and have given up caring. There is a big problem with that from my perspective because it can lead to many negative things in a society that needs nothing but more positivity today.
People need to stand up and be passionate. People need to take an extra few minutes every day to not only educate themselves on the news of the day around the world, but to educate themselves on the facts. Having an opinion that is based on false or misleading information is having a useless opinion. Educating yourself by spending a bit of time researching the facts of a subject before posting memes or other things on your social media and before jumping into a political discussion to drive a point is important.
We cannot drive change through emotion alone. We need to utilize the facts, both historical and current, to form a basis for the changes we feel need to be enacted. Take the political spectrum today for instance. There is a very large contingent of voters on the right (about a third) who are so vehemently devoted to Donald Trump that Trump could do just about anything and not lose their votes. Why is that? That is because those people were so emotionally upset with their situations before the 2016 campaigns started, and they saw Donald Trump, a man who in their minds spoke what was on his mind, bucked the system, and spoke about making AMERICA GREAT AGAIN! Trump appealed to their emotional states, and he didn't need facts to bring them to his side. He simply needed to be different, talk about how the establishment was treating them horribly, and have a catch phrase or two to keep them excited.
Still today, when I have conversations with some of these devoted Trump supporters, those conversations contain facts coming from me to explain why I feel Trump shouldn't be the President, and only emotion coming from them. They live in emotion because the facts simply don't support any sort of positive narrative for the future. The President continues to lie nearly every time he opens his mouth, he continues to denigrate our allies around the world and speak more positively about dictators, he continues to run a campaign to smear the major investigation going on by spreading lies and mistruths, and he continues to use his bully pulpit to denigrate any number of people, countries and businesses. All the while, that 1/3 of supporters is still there, standing beside him every step of the way, because facts don't matter like they should.
We all need to stand up, demand change, have debates and discussions, choose our candidates wisely (because we have the power to do that), stop voting straight ticket, lift each other up instead of knock each other down, actively listen to each other, and find compromises based both in emotion and fact that will be best for our country moving forward.
This blog is my way of starting the discussion, and my way of hopefully touching a handful of people out there who will read it and become more active in politics and become more passionate about being involved and become more grounded in the facts rather than simply emotion.
People should be talking, and I hope in some small way my blog will have an impact on at least one person, if not more. I will continue on posting blogs on a regular basis, and will continue on being so very grateful that those of you out there who regularly read my blog, or are reading it for the first time today, are offering my words a bit of time in your lives. I am grateful for that and thank you all for the time you have taken to read my posts.
Thank you, and I look forward to posting a similar message after my 100th blog milestone.
DUNK
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