I'm having trouble figgering this out. I'm not usually serious about stuff, so bear with me on this one, please. We're getting too serious about this shit. By us, I'm talking about journal-keepers. Even those of us who are not actively involved are following developments closely, because they will affect our "community", or maybe our clique, if we're "lucky" enough to be in one. I've seen a word that I don't feel comfortable with lately. Several times. Competitors. compitition. Like, we're all after some silicone job somewhere. Whoever is the most popular (read:scores the most "hits") wins. The rest of us are losers, has-beens, also-rans. According to a popular source, half of us want to be writers. Suddenly, half of the competition is gone. Half of us are only playing at this. Because it's fun, and possibly therapeutic. Well, OK. I lied. I wanna be a writer. Not really, really bad, though. I just want people to like my writing. People should say "What a clever writer Doug is... he should do that for a living." But Doug would starve writing for a living. Shit, Good writers are starving on a daily basis. However, I would love it if someone would come up and say, I like your writing, I'll give you $XXX for everything you've written. It would be a whole different story to have someone say, write me this for $XX every week. Not that I wouldn't try it, mind you. But it's not gonna happen. When I was a kid, I got a guitar, and I learned how to play it. By God, I could BE A STAR! and they sold six million guitars that year. Only relatively recently did I get access to the web... along with six million other people, three million of whom want to be writers, two million of whom want to be HTML creators, and the rest just can't decide. Anyway, the point is, I don't want to compete. For time, for space, for hits, for "fan" loyalty, for adulation, for money. I'll compete for Bass, though, any day of the week. What I want, what I want... Is just to be here. To share myself with the world, like I share myself with my friends. To feel like everyone in the world is my friend. Warm, fuzzy feeling. I love it. One piece of email a week saying, "I like your writing" is enough to keep me in the game. I don't play to win. I play to have fun. And I'm having fun... don't fuck it up for me!