#MJCarty10: My 10th blogaversary!

Michael Carty

The MJCarty blog is officially 10 years old! I look back at why I started blogging, why I keep blogging… and reveal the 10 most-read posts of my first decade of bloggage.

Gentle reader: Thank you! I want to offer my sincere gratitude to you for taking the time to be here today. I’m in a thankful and thoughtful* mode as regards this little blog of mine, as I realised the other day that it has somehow quietly hit its 10th anniversary.

A decade of blogging! How is that even possible?

Thursday 9 November 2023 was the day my blog made it into double figures (in age terms). Exactly one decade prior, I published my debut post: So why don’t George A Romero’s zombies eat brains? #RomeroNight. This was a wee bit of reportage from my November 2013 visit to London’s BFI Southbank cinema to see George A Romero (director of Dawn of the Dead and many other superb films) in conversation.

Revisiting that post this past week brought back so many memories. It reminded me of being in the same room as the now dear-departed Mr Romero. And it took me back to the days when I decided to launch this blog.

So why did I start blogging? And, 10 years in, what keeps me coming back to put my words out into the ether each week?

Why I started blogging

Stettheimer_Birthday_Bouquet

I first caught the blogging bug maybe 15 or 16 years ago, when a company I worked for launched a blog as an experiment in producing a different kind of HR-related content from our usual fare. I was invited to be one of its team of authors.

My first attempts at blogging, in all frankness, sucked. I found it awkward and uncomfortable to attempt to write in a different, more conversational tone. But over time, my writing relaxed into this new medium. And quite unexpectedly (to me, at least), the blog gradually gathered an audience and became a hub for conversation and the sharing of ideas among the UK and global HR community.

All good things must come to an end. That blog reached its finish at some point in or around late 2013.

But the urge to blog was still there. I missed the discipline of blogging, of trying my best to use the written word to give some kind of form and expression to my thoughts.

I kind of stumbled into setting up my own blog, having no objective in mind other than that I wanted to keep blogging in my spare time, and that I wanted to try writing about things outside of the world of HR.

The first version of the MJCarty blog was a Tumblr site, simply because it was possible to be up and blogging within seconds. I would eventually (in 2018) make the move to WordPress and to the MJCarty.com domain name.

When I first started blogging, I had three specific bloggers in mind as influences. Each of these bloggers continues to put out bloggage in 2023 (although not all with such frequency as a decade back). These three blogging influences were:

  1. Neil Morrison’s Change-effect blog, for the clarity and brevity of expression.
  2. David Hepworth’s blog, for his freedom to write about any subject that might take his fancy.
  3. DJ Food’s blog, for the delightful way he integrates photos, videos and other visual content with his written musings.

Why I keep blogging

Cake_in_the_dark

Cut to today. I wonder if writing a blog is quaintly archaic in the modern era, when the worlds of podcasting and YouTube (and, of course, a whole galaxy of social media) offer everyone so many wonderful ways to express themselves.

All the same, writing a blog continues to be – for now, at least – my preferred way to explore and try to express my thoughts.

So much of writing is done when you are not writing. I love the weekly discipline of blogging in the early hours of the morning. I see this blog as an enjoyable pastime, a way to clarify my thoughts, let out and put a lid on whatever has been occupying my mind that day or that week.

It’s also just so nice to write for the sheer hell of it. When words flow out onto the page, they don’t feel like they are coming from the conscious mind. The heart is as good a name as any for their possible point of origin.

When I write, I never know where these words will take me. It is a joyful and meditative process. Just occasionally, I can read my work back and find I’ve somehow given form to thoughts in a way that I would stumblingly fail to achieve if I had tried to speak what was on or in my mind.

I write this blog for its own sake, for the love of writing itself. But on occasion, my words might resonate with or spark something in a reader. This can lead to wonderfully unexpected and enriching conversations. For example, I have been amazed at the response to my irregular but ongoing series of posts about the mental health journey** I have found myself on, these past two years. At the start of this journey, I resolved to be as open and honest as possible about each stage, in the hope that my words might be of some small help to even one soul out there. To each of the beautiful souls who read or responded to these posts, I am truly thankful, and wish you nothing but the very best for today, and for every day.

And to anyone and everyone that has taken or will ever take the time to read these words or any other words on this blog: Thank you.

May you be nothing but kind today, to others and to yourself.

May today be nothing but kind to you and yours.

MJCarty.com: The top 10 posts of my first decade

If it might be of any interest, here are the top 10 most-read posts from this here blog (or, at least, the top 10 since I shifted to WordPress, which provides stats in a way my previous platform didn’t).

  1. My top 5 Yoga With Adriene videos
  2. When I look back upon my life
  3. Mastodon FAQ: Toot sweet?
  4. The ghosts of Soho record shops past
  5. Andrew Weatherall: Ripples and tiny reminders
  6. Everybody here belongs
  7. Time to drop the act?
  8. Mental health: Six things I’ve learnt in 2022
  9. Anxiety: Your own worst enemy
  10. Monty Python’s Bicycle Repairman sketch: It was 45 years ago today

FOOTNOTES

* This is as good an excuse as any to share the incredible Sly and the Family Stone song Thankful n’ Thoughtful, from the also incredible Fresh album.

** Here are all the posts so far in the ongoing series on my mental health journey: Into the infinity of thoughts; Renewal; No words?; Mental health first response; Glorify; In our darkest hours; At the heart of things; No feeling is final; Relax harder. Anxiety: Your own worst enemy; All these moments; Mental health: Six things I’ve learnt in 2022; Coping?; The sun will return; Gratitude; Mental health: Night and day; Transitions; Peace?; It’s OK to forget; and Stayin’ alive.

IMAGES

2 Comments

Leave a comment