Son,

You and I have had some success with this blog. First and foremost to me is the opportunity to talk with you every day – no father is more blessed. We started this thing so others could join in our father and son chats. It may be difficult for some to believe – but you and I really do talk about current events, politics, theology, philosophy, and we even share recipes. We talk about everything. That is what we have done with this blog.

We have had success beyond our dreams; we presently have a steady reader base of a couple of hundred a day. We think that is pretty good for only being up and running for two months. Occasionally, however, we strike gold. We write that nugget of entertainment. We get five hundred hits in a day. The we pause. We wonder, is that our market? Should we focus on those jewels of the blogosphere? Or should we write recipes? Should we limit our content to one or two topics. We never do that when actually sitting by the fireplace, poking the glowing embers.

But we want to be sensitive to our readers. We recognize that we are in a world market – that some people do not care about our humor or our politics or our flair for cooking up a mess of beans. So we ask, should we specialize?

I have a business man friend in this small town. He is pretty clever. He realized that the cat food company makes four different flavors of canned cat food. He reasoned that they have assembly lines for each product. So the varieties are packaged independent of one another. He went to the store to buy cat food and picked two of each variety – always considerate of the cat. Then he realized that the cat food company could have variety packs – but that would require integrating the packaging of four different assembly lines. He talked to the cat food company and he started a business. He has sixteen employees and their job is to take cat food cans from four different trucks and integrate them into variety packs. The cat food company pays him to do this. The more efficiently he can collate the cans, the more money he makes. Ah, the blessings of the American Dream – owning your own business. Specializing. Finding a niche’ market. He has made a fortune. I am happy for him.

But who wants to invest their energy in finding the most efficient way to sort cat food? There is real value in doing the up front grunt work. My friend has a foreman who makes sure the ‘integrated cat food line’ remains efficient. My friend cashes the checks. Pretty cool.

So we write a blog. We write about everything. I think we have demonstrated to ourselves that we can write, and write well, about a variety of topics. But who cares? We have been tinkering in the garage for two months and have built a vehicle. It looks like that truck on the TV show, Beverly Hillbillies. Cobbled together with bailing wire – suitable for grandma’s and youngsters. We will give anyone a ride – but who wants to ride with us?

We advocate the Joseph Campbell ideology – ‘Follow your Bliss.’ Well, what exactly is that? Are we so insensitive to others that we think we can do what we want and they can just take us or leave us? Should we cater to a specific market – or follow our bliss? Are we common folks; is our bliss also the bliss of others?

Readers, help us out. What do you think we should do?

Dad

See Also: On Writing, Blogging, Journalism