“Blessed is he who expects nothing for he shall never be disappointed.”
Jonathon Swift
Cantankerous Old Coots has been an engaging journey. It’s been well over a year since Justin started this blog and I jumped into water way over my head trying to save him from his folly. Along the way we’ve tried a few things that we thought might be crowd pleasers. We developed Coot’s lessons to help the cantankerously impaired develop their full potential as coots. We even started Cantankerous Old Coots University (COCU) for serious students of cantankerosity, anticipating a mad rush for enrollment. We thought Coots would serve as a meeting place for square pegs sick of squeezing into round holes, a community of Coots exchanging spirited comments.
So much for plans!
Well, that’s not quite how it turned out and being the anal-retentive control freak I am, I keep asking why. Coot’s is a successful blog if you care about visitors and page reads. It has a credible Alexa score and is approaching 500 visitors per day. Reasonable people might ask what I am fussing about. Reasonable people should piss off. By any measure of blogging success, COC stands up well. We are clearly doing something right. We don’t have a clue what it might be but maybe we should just stop fussing and relax. Still, there are those darn expectations. Where is the adulating crowd of readers eager to share the glory by leaving a comment? Where is the hungry crowd of Coot wannabes eagerly lapping up the Coots lessons and enrolling in COCU?
Is this all there is?
Bob, the newest Coot, is unperturbed even as he credits the new Coot’s podcasts with driving the recent growth spurt. Bob sees the future in podcasts and video casts and is well on his way to conquering the yurt niche on the web so maybe he is right. All I know is that success is a different animal than I expected. It isn’t warm and cuddly. It doesn’t make you feel secure and confident like a dog that slobbers all over you when you come home at night. Success is more like a big buffalo running inexplicably through your tiny china shop. It doesn’t love you. It doesn’t pay any attention to what you want and if you aren’t really careful, it will pound you into the ground.
If…..
If I was smart, I would just relax and ride it out but I am cursed with the need to understand and manage. And when the outcome isn’t what I anticipate I get my panties in a bunch. It’s a curse but that’s just the way I am. I just have to figure out one way or another why success is different from what I expected. Why can’t I just smile and enjoy the ride? It beats me. I suppose that’s what makes me a Cantankerous Old Coot. What’s your excuse?
I feel much the same way Ralph. Ups and downs with visitors, who knows how many real people are actually reading becaue it is hard to get a community discussion going. I see we ahve some new comments this week from new people…that is great.
I too am trying to figure out what this “success” thing actually is. I don’t see it as a cuddly thing anymore either, but I don’t see it as a buffalo either. It is more like having a saddle on a shark. You hold on and try to control it but there is only so much you can do. It is at times cold and unmanageable and at any moment it can go down and leave you sputtering. the only control you have is tenuous at best but we still try.
While we both try to figure out the mechanics of this site and watch Bob lie back and suck traffic to his sites, I have to say it has been a wild year and a half. The magic started here on March 25, 2010 and has only been getting better. Maybe it is just the old blog post promoter or maybe people just want to see what a coot looks like.
Maybe this whole thing truly is legitimate and it is time to charge for membership. We start with Hansi and Bob. Dave can have a complimentary membership for a few months, and we *may* give Heather a pass. Time will tell. We will leave the university free for the time being.
Justin,
I think maybe Bob has the best handle on all this. He just doesn’t give a rat’s ass.
Maybe that is the essence of Cantankerosity…..but if we all didn’t care we would have a giant 404 error instead of this site.
Maybe that is the secret to happiness and the meaning of life- a giant 404 error.
Don’t mess with success.
Still waiting for that Post Hansi…..
Justin…wait in one hand and shit in the other…see which fills up first…LOL.
Hansi’s the only one I know that’s slower than me at getting posts up here…
I don’t think Hansi is trying. If I had the money to take the kids to Disneyland, I would pay Hansi a visit and drag him to the computer until he finishes a coherent and cantankerous post.
But there is no Disneyland in the near future, so I will have to just keep callnig him out….Maybe I should do it on his blog, or get the Bad Deacon involved….
And I always heard the saying as “hope in one hand” not wait….still valid.