Arbitration & Mediation

One Hundred Articles at Mediate.com for Valentine's Day

By Victoria Pynchon

O.K., they're not exactly articles.  They're posts.  It's much much easier to write a post than it is to write an article (N.B. IP ADR BLOGGERS!!!) 

Maybe it's just me, but I get more miles per gallon out of reading a blog post than an article. 

Why? 

First, I'm just generally more interested in people's subjective experience than I am in people's opinions about how things are or should be. 

This is the primary difference between an article and a blog post.  An article is usually filled with facts and opinions.  Period.  If a post contains facts and opinions, it expresses them through the writer's unique set of experiences -- through the writer's subjectivity.  

You don't have to be convinced by a poster's opinion -- you get to experience it.  Then you can accept or reject it on its own terms.  As an old Lit major, that's pretty much how I live in the world -- subjectively. 

As the poet Galway Kinnell once explained, if you express your personal, unique, individual experience truly enough, you become the voice of a creature on the planet speaking.  The more subjective your experience, the more universal it is.  

This is why I blog.  If you want to know why other lawyers blog, take a look at What About Clients? here and Ohio Practical Business Law Counsel here.

I'm writing this post because I'm celebrating 100 blog posts over at Mediate.com. 

I'm celebrating 100 because I like round numbers, birthdays, anniversaries and turning points. 

This year, for example, I want to net six figures.  It's nice and round and substantial.  And because I'm doing what I love to do (mediating) instead of simply what I'm good at (practicing law) six figures will be quite enough for me until I'm shuffled off to the old folks' home.  Where I'm hoping, by the way, to reach 100 in good health so I can blog about whatever it is that holds the attention and sparks the passion of someone at the century mark.

Thanks for reading.  There are about 80,000 of you a year now.  I know that's not much on an internet where Lonely Girl 15 gets 25,000 "hits" a day, but it's a lot of people interested in my little niche -- negotiating the settlement of commercial litigation -- not to mention my experience of that niche.  

Which reminds me of one of my favorite Robert Creeley poems, a lagniappe for you on my 100-Mediate.com-Posts Day.

The Conspiracy

You send me your poems,
I'll send you mine.

Things tend to awaken
even through random communication.

Let us suddenly
proclaim spring. And jeer

at the others,
all the others.

I will send a picture too
if you will send me one of you

Full post as published by Settle It Now Negotiation Blog on February 13, 2008 (boomark / email).