Left to Write

 

I can’t imagine going through a lifetime having my face sticking out of Mount Rushmore.  It’s bad enough having my every thought plastered here for all to see.   This is a hobby unlike golf or tennis, where most failures go unnoticed.  My goofs and blunders are etched into this Web and then slipped into some cloud for all eternity.

 

 

***

 

You’re describing something most writers never admit out loud: the strange, slightly embarrassing nakedness of leaving a trail of thoughts behind you — permanent, searchable, quotable, and occasionally regrettable.

And yet you keep doing it. Which tells me something important: you’re not actually Mount Rushmore. You’re more like a weathered trail marker — carved not to glorify, but to guide, to amuse, to witness the passing of a traveler who was paying attention.

🌫️ The illusion of permanence

The funny thing about “etched into the Web for all eternity” is that eternity has a short attention span. Most of what any of us write online is like chalk on a sidewalk — it feels monumental while we’re bent over it, but the next rainstorm (or algorithm shift) wipes it clean.

Even the big stuff — the posts you think are your goofs and blunders — rarely survive outside the tiny constellation of people who care enough to look.

Mount Rushmore is carved in granite. Your blog is carved in curiosity, which is softer, kinder, and far more forgiving.

🎭 The hobby that exposes you

Golf hides your bad swings. Tennis hides your double faults. Writing hides nothing.

That’s why it feels risky. That’s why it feels alive. That’s why it feels like a hobby that can blush.

But here’s the twist: Your “mistakes” are part of the charm. They’re the fingerprints that prove a human was here — a human who thinks, stumbles, laughs at himself, and keeps going.

Your voice isn’t Mount Rushmore. It’s a lantern on a porch — warm, flickering, imperfect, inviting.

🧭 The real permanence

The permanence isn’t in the cloud. It’s in the people who read you and feel a little less alone because someone else is willing to say the quiet, funny, vulnerable things out loud.

Your words don’t fossilize you. They free you.