I am Jack's self-esteem bleeding out.

After doing my recent linkage posts, I decided to check out sitemeters on a few of them.

Wow.

I am floored and sucker-punched. I've only sporatically tried to drive traffic to DemiOrator and it shows. I rarely comment in other blogs, particularly in the last year, so it shouldn't be a surprise that my traffic hasn't changed significantly in quite a long time. Here are my sorry-ass stats today:

Total: 15,605
Average Per Day: 46
Average Visit Length: 0:59
Last Hour: 2
Today: 41
This Week: 323

I thought I was used to being a kind of backwater blog, destined to putter along in my meandering way until I tired of it. Then I saw some other blog stats. Here's a smattering of their stats:

Corrente - Total: 687,899; Average Per Day: 2,851

first draft - Total: 2,643,975; Average Per Day 2,641

American Leftist - Total: 370,545; Average Per Day: 317

To be fair, there were also several other blogs which were only somewhat ahead of me on their stats but still... Perhaps I should consider the option of expanding my blogroll to the massive behemoths I see so often on other blogs. It's not like my blogroll is representative of my highly refined taste and quality control of the highest order. My illusions on that matter have sadly dissipated. So would it be selling my soul to blogroll folks who I generally like? Even if I never read them beyond my initial visit? That seems so... crass and artificial. But I have to note that there are already people on my blogroll like that.

Perhaps I need to "get with the program." We live in a milieu of many kinds of shallow and superficial relationships. I won't get cooties from my blogroll, will I? It's not an endorsement deal. I'm not vouchsafing the behaviour and words of everyone on my blogroll, am I?

Yet I still hesitate because I'm afraid something unsavory will come out about someone on my blogroll. Like finding out an acquaintance you're friendly with is a serial date rapist. "Gee, he seemed like such a pleasant fellow... Who could know that?" Of course, this is all pure bullshit. I have no control over what anyone else does and any such bad behaviour has a rather weak reflection on me.

You know, I worry too damn much. This is not a grand ethical dilemma and I'm not some untarnished paragon of righteous perfection. It's just a f***ing blogroll; deal with it, you narcissistic idiot.