There have been certain temptations I have managed, by the grace of God, to avoid while writing this web journal. One of them has been not to look at the statistics of visitors to this site. A big part of me does not want to know how many people read my journal for fear that it might change my style and purpose of writing. A harder temptation has been not to look at the referrer logs. I am, by nature, a very inquisitive person. I am curious how visitors find me, but again, part of me does not want to know. I fear that I might start pandering to other interest in an attempt to gain readership.
Finally, I nearly succumbed to temptation on one little, queer issue. Back in April, I wrote a short, ironic piece called “New Car Technology”. It really has nothing to do with new car technology, but rather my frustration with an inconsiderate driver. Every now and then, I get an amusing little comment posted by seeming random persons with limited vocabulary, usually consisting of what a “happy” young fellow I am and how I am going to burn in eternal fire. One or two have been much vulgar and crude. I did not want to wade through the referrer log to find the source of the latest “amusing little comment”, so I tried a simple google search. To my big surprise, my link appears at the top of a list of 4,360,000 results (as of today). Wow! Imagine that, me at the top of a list at Google. Have I made the big time or what?
Now, I do not like deleting comments from visitors, but I do have my standards to keep. After all, my family, friends, and some of my students read this journal. This web journal, like most weblogs, is not exactly a public forum for debate and rhetoric. It is an outlet for me to share my reflections on life, and specifically my faith journey. As the quote on the side reads, “Life is a gift, not to possess, but to share.” Differing opinions and values do not bother me. I welcome them open heartedly, and hopefully, open mindedly.
I guess the writers of these “amusing little comments” don’t use their turn signals either.