A Blog By Any Other Name


Because I enjoy giving myself random and pointless assignments, I decided to change the name of my blog every day for one month.  It started out as a creative challenge, but almost immediately I realized that it offered a valuable lesson in impermanence.  In the last month, I came up with a few winners, but no matter how much I liked a title, I had to chuck it in the morning and find another to take its place.  The forever changing blog name challenge taught me not to get attached, to enjoy and appreciate each name fully, and then let it go.  Whatever the name that day; that was the name.  Yesterday's name ceased to exist and tomorrow's name didn't matter.  The blog lived in the moment of its present title.  

Accepting the impermanence of any given name was a good experience for me, because life is like that too.  To live fully, we must be present in the moment.  The moment is all we really have.

After a few weeks, however, changing my blog's name started to become a pain in the ass.  It felt more like a chore than a lesson in impermanence.   I would occasionally whine about having to do it.  This was ridiculous because, in reality, I didn't HAVE to change it.  I had created this chore for myself.  And when you think about it, we create unnecessary work for ourselves all the time.    Sometimes we do it to scratch a creative itch.  Sometimes we do it for the greater good.  Still other times we do it because of a sense that we ought to.  I felt  like someone who decides to grind all her own grain and then complains about how much work it is to make pancakes, when all-the-while flour is sitting there on the shelf of the market, readily available.  I gave myself the assignment of naming and renaming and then felt sorry for myself because I had such a high maintenance blog.

In the last few days, however, when I began to realize that the month was almost over, I began to feel sad about the imminent close of the change a day blog experiment.  It wasn't a chore any longer.  It was something to be savored.  My opportunities to rename were dwindling and each renaming seemed precious.  I had grown attached to it.  

And now...the experiment is over.  Impermanence once again.  I did it for 4 weeks.  Now what?  

I will ponder this.  You can ponder it too.  You can send me suggestions.  

Blogger didn't save the names.  When I renamed, the old one was gone.  But I saved them.  Here is a list of the 28 names that were used.

  1. Apropos of Nothing
  2. AoN
  3. Ampersand
  4. Fanciful Nanciful's Dance-Along Blogfest
  5. Callithump Thunderblog
  6. Stepping In Puddles
  7. The Unscrabbled Mind
  8. The Adventures of Snark Cat and Smug Dog
  9. Walking on the Ceiling
  10. A Blog Named Sue
  11. Timid Pajamas
  12. Exploding Hairdo
  13. The Plight of the Raisins
  14. You're So Vain, You Probably Think This Blog Is About You
  15. Illegal Petrissage
  16. Take Note
  17. Your Reason to Get Up in the Morning
  18. Read, Rinse, Repeat
  19. Ask not what this blog can do for you, but what you can do for this blog
  20. Miss Sandra Stinglash's Guide to Manners
  21. Unmotivated Steps
  22. Ampersandwich
  23. Icosahedron Blog-o-sphere
  24. The Sunshine Day School's Annual Fundraising Cookbook & Nutrition Guide
  25. Rambling Ramsey's Roadside Reader
  26. The Return of the Bay Leaves
  27. Gambol Hop Gallumpha
  28. The Blog Fairy Underground





Have fun reading! Feel free to pass these scrawlings on, but make sure to give credit. This is copyrighted material.

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1 Response to "A Blog By Any Other Name"

  • http://howtobecomeacatladywithoutthecats.blogspot.com Says: February 28, 2009 at 10:55 AM

    Dear Nanodance,

    On behalf of your followers, I want to commend you on your success in providing us with such enlightening and thought-provoking blog titles over the past month. This exercise in pointlessness has given us pause to reexamine our own pointless existence. We have emerged stronger for it and with new resolve to forge ahead with pointless tasks in the future.

    As a token of our esteem, we would like to present you with a special award we will be creating just for you. Please let us know of your availability for the award ceremony. However, we understand the difficulty in pulling yourself away from pointless tasks long enough to attend the award ceremony. Should you be unavailable, we will send the award to you via USPS. (Although the cheap bottle of wine may be damaged in shipment. We can't be held responsible for that.)

    Sincerely,
    Larew

    P.S. My personal favorites (in no particular order) are:

    Fanciful Nanciful's Dance-Along Blogfest
    Callithump Thunderblog
    Illegal Petrissage
    Ampersandwich
    Icosahedron Blog-o-sphere


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