Thursday, December 13, 2012

BYE-FURCATION!

I started CAYLWAWRAL almost three years ago to document, well, a whole hell of a lot of stuff, actually.  Way too much diversity for one blog. 

In the intervening time, and because of that complexity, I began to split off a lot of my publicly-oriented content into twin topical blogs that have since grown to be held in modest esteem within our community and geographic area. 

This morning I completed the other side of that transition by creating a new family blog that will be unlisted and accessible by invitation only.  That's intended to replace and improve upon the personal side of CAYLAWRAL

I have reached my limit on this idea of blog-as-faceplate.  I have never been comfortable with the personal branding, air-brushing and showmanship that have infected the blogosphere, which is precisely why I always tried to include as much general value-added content as possible in CAYLAWRAL, even though it didn't fit stylistically with the personal and family material. 

In order to be existentially valid, a blog has to serve somebody with a purpose more profound than simple ego puffery.  And in order to really serve, it has to be honest and an accurate representation of reality.  My two topical blogs are less personal in nature and therefore it's appropriate to keep them public, but the honest and accurate nitty-gritty family stuff is intrinsically private and needs to be kept that way. 

The new blog is intended primarily to serve the CAY in CAYLAWRAL, the CAY who is now a teenager facing an order of magnitude more life responsibility as a pending adult.  Those of you family and close friends who are reading this will get an invitation with a sign-up URL shortly.

I extend a warm thank you to all of you, the tens of thousands (!) of you, who have accessed sections of CAYLAWRAL.  I hope I've been able to bring you some good ideas or a tiny bit of inspiration along the way.  I will leave CAYLAWRAL posted up for the time being, because I can see statistically how that content is still being sought. 

Thank you, and good luck to you all in your respective lives.