I fear setting standards. The problem with standards is that people expect you to be consistent. Even if you don't plan it, if you do something long enough eventually a theme begins to develop. After awhile you become that guy who does that thing. Or, if you are horribly untalented then you become that guy who does that thing terribly on a regular basis.
If there is one thing I am not in life, it is consistent. Scholastically I have either done really well at the beginning of a semester and then abysmally by the end or I start off poorly and I am barely able to eek it out. As far as work or labor is concerned I have always done best when I have had an assigned task that I can complete and once the task is over, I take a break. An egotistical person would spit shine that admission and say that they have an all or nothing personality but a realistic person would say that they find it excruciatingly difficult to maintain an average.
So I've got a couple months blogging under my belt and I've already started falling into a niche. Originally I planned on writing a blog with an even mixture of "intelligent" ideas combined with semi humorous musings. I aspired to be some kind of textual George Carlin making you smile while I drove home some important uncovered truth about humanity. Now I find myself writing a lot of "this sucks and here's why" articles because I think that it is what people want to read. Don't get me wrong I don't feel as if I am manufacturing a product in order to win fans. I do think however that my initial flow has been stunted or altered by a perceived desire to entertain others better. As it turns out, I am a whore for attention and recognition first and a person of morals and integrity second.
This may not be a bad thing. If I was at home cooking for myself chances are that I'd just slather about 6 slices of bread with peanut butter and scarf them down. However, if I was cooking for someone else I'd go to greater lengths to make something that is tasty that required effort. Superimposing that example onto my blog, the nagging voice in the back of my head that says "people are watching" probably does make me pay more attention and try to make what I say more fluid and easier to relate to.
The only foreseeable problem that I alluded to earlier is that I self edit and shy away from topics that I may otherwise have written about freely. How can I be sure that the great majority of people are in on the joke? How do I still be edgy without being offensive? Ultimately we all believe that we should write for ourselves first and our audience second but I wonder about that. It seems to me that every band that makes it big doesn't do so until they write the one album that sounds conventional or mainstream. Or if the band starts out mainstream and then grow experimental then they lose most of their fan base. As much as I like to think I am typing out most of this crap because it is therapeutic, in reality I do want to be recognized and showered with praise and large sums of cash.
