Caring about what I'm doing here

Yesterday I was reading Wil Wheaton’s blog, and he had a post about how to run a good D&D game. It was solid information, but nothing groundbreaking. Anyone who’s been running D&D for a while could come up with the basics of that list.

But his comments section was full of people telling him what great ideas he had, and how awesome he was for having such great ideas.

Wil Wheaton has had enough going on in his life for lots of people, me included, to care. But this is an area where Wil is not an expert. I am more expert than he is in this area. Yet people seemed to care enough to post on the internet to tell him that they cared about what he thought.

My default assumption is that people do not care about what I have to say. Whatever I think has to be justifiable by some vague personal standard to ever say out loud, or post on a blog. It has to be funny enough or meaningful enough, or I have to establish myself as expert enough for me to think anyone will want to hear it.

Getting dressed this morning, it suddenly occurred to me that people might care what I have to say, whether or not I can justify myself to them. Readers/listeners might just intriniscally care. I might not have to prove myself.