Resident Expert

  I was reading a blogger the other day and she advocated blogging until you find your niche.  Her point of view was that of becoming an expert on a topic that you love, or come to love; then distribute what you know about the topic to the questioning world.  That lay heavy on my heart for the rest of the evening and into the morning; mainly because I had been blogging for over a year and I was not dedicated to linking to sources in order to persuade others that I was right.  My bias is slinking into this post as I pound out the words.  My rebellion with the notion of ‘being right’ and citing a host of other authors who may be correct in their research about other writers doing research on …um…researchers, only goes to prove a point I’ve long ago discovered to be prevailing.

It depends.

  My background in science tells me that research produces results which gets studies published.  There are no peer reviewed articles on what doesn’t work.  There are no published papers on how a study didn’t obtain the results sought after by the researcher.  Those studies die a quiet death and are never seen from again; something my professor Dr Goldman and I agreed on as being sad and loss to the science community because it forces all studies to reinvent the wheel under the auspiciousness of trying to be unbiased.)  So I have been seasoned to accept that all research, no matter how exacting, obtains the results implied in the research objective statement.  Just as statistics can be manipulated to say whatever the statistician wants the numbers to mean; the facts can be aligned under stringent enough conditions to become irrefutable (under the conditions they are examined under).  So the whole notion of becoming ‘an expert’ on any topic can become an invitation into a point of view prison.  The endeavor to know all things about a subject can serve to lock a person who invest so much of their time and energy into a concept to see only the derived point of view under the lenses of always; they believe to the level of faith.  And like all faiths, is subject to rigid adherence along with resistance to any information that does not support its sacred trusted tenants.

  Yet, I can see need all around me; more to the point, I see the state of lack. Blogs from childcare to garden care; from best paint to use in the Arctic to best movies in the summer, and yes, ample blogs on how to blog.  So what’s my beef?  I guess it’s the notion that everything has to serve a purpose.  Endeavors must provide the reader with a plethora of citations and links in order to convince.  Why must we be inundated with so much effort to convince?  Is the prevailing need to be proven right so consuming that the fun of investigation has been beaten out of an opinion by anxiety of being judged?  On the flip side, there’s an army of intolerance just champing at the bait to not just debunk said effort; they get personal in accusations and slander about the authors family origin. Who would willingly wade into that kind of firestorm but a soul desperately seeking acceptance?

   Causes have their effect; have we lost the true nature of exploration? The joy of discovery?  Replacing possibilities with punishment is such a poor substitute for living well. Somewhere the notion of being wrong means flawed person who should be punished? Who deserves to be punished? Ours is a bullying society, and anyone who focuses on just child bullying is missing the message being sent; whose behavior teaches kids social behavior first?  Maybe I’m jumping to a conclusion; something about need to be right sets me in that mood.  I don’t want to be right; I want to connect; even if that’s by rambling about my puppy or butterflies.  That doesn’t mean I’m not interested in conveying a point of view, or I don’t take problems seriously, I do.  

  I am just not buying into the need to be an expert before I mention what charms me.  I’ve no evidence to prove my opinion beyond my personal experience. My objective is far more obvious ~ let’s share what we think; what we feel. Confident in the premise: You be you and I’ll be me; as I don’t have to make you wrong, for me to be right

For me.