I’ve come to the conclusion that we are a society of watchers. We like parades. But, we don’t particularly like being in the parade. We’d rather stand on the curb and watch it. Now that isn’t particularly a bad thing—no, not at all. It’s just an observation. After all, we can’t all be the drum major out front or even the last clown in the troupe. Being a watcher is a necessary thing. In fact you got to have a multitude of watchers or the parade just doesn’t work. Occasionally, however, don’t you think all of us has an urge to be a part of the parade? I think so.

         This insight comes to me today after I checked my stats in Writing.com, where I have the bulk of my written material stored. The site has a feature that permits one to see how many people have peeked at your material. It does not indicate that they spent much time in there—only that they made the visit. But, at least you know someone is watching. What I would like to see is more folks joining the parade—I mean I’d like to see a few more people make a comment or two.

         I wouldn’t usually say anything about this, except for the fact that it appears an unusually high amount of folks are visiting and then backing out of my port. Here’s what I mean. Over the last fourteen days I’ve had 3,800 visits to my material. I would hope a few of those visits were more than drive-by glances. I mean it would be nice if a few folks had actually read one or two of those 3,800 views. However, I don’t have a clue if anyone is spending any time reading my material. All I know is that only 13 folks stopped to take the time to make a comment. That’s a pretty low showing of 0.3% of the total 3,800 views.

         However, that got me to thinking about this whole concept of watcher v. parader thing. In a world of watchers, I guess 0.3% ain’t bad. I mean, like the Dallas Cowboy football stadium has a seating capacity of 80,000 persons. Now, I suspect there are at least four or five hundred people on the field during any given game. That figures to about 0.5% of the folks being down on the field—this doesn't take into consideration the million or so couch-potatoes watching at home. The rest of us are watching. Watching is what most of us do best, myself included. Every now and then I take a turn at jumping in the parade for a short time. But, mostly I’m like the folks who visit my stuff in Writing.com; I mainly watch.

         That’s why I don’t get offended when no one leaves a comment on a particularly outstanding piece of writing. I don’t puff up pompously and condemn a complacent and apathetic audience. Nope, I realize they are only doing what they do best, watching. That’s what they do. Heck, that’s what I do. Now, does anyone want to comment on this blog? It’s OK if you don’t….and again, it’s OK if you do too.