What is DukkhaGirl. And why?
A long time ago, in another era of my life, my eldest daughter went on a cross-country trip with a friend’s family when they moved. This left me with a bit more free time and — what do you do with that extra time? Get more fit? Learn a language? Actually write a novel? NO! If you’re me, you start a blog.
Many people were starting blogs in the last 2000s. DukkhaGirl had not been my first. My first was a preliminary website with one essay (eventually a few) about the actual origins of various holidays we celebrate, and a rudimentary comment form, composed with (I think) PageMaker. This was probably around 1996.
That tells you how old I likely am. The “girl” in DukkhaGirl didn’t actually even apply when I was writing it the first time, except in the sense of being female. It certainly doesn’t now. But it feels the right place to put certain posts and essays that I tend to write.
But, anyway…
There wasn’t as much out there then and then seasonalcelebrations.com (no, I no longer own that domain) got a surprising amount of comments. Imagine if I’d just kept that up and turned it into a food and holiday celebration blog!
But, of course, I didn’t.
Of the many blogs I’ve made and ended, DukkhaGirl was probably my favorite to write. Likely because, despite the fact that I was writing under a pseudonym, it was actually me. I was writing about personal experience-type stuff and not trying to do product reviews or travel blog posts (ugh!). And, possibly, it’s because it also had a small but regular readership and I felt a bit like it was a community.
But what is this site about?
At its heart, DukkhaGirl was a Buddhist-ish blog when it first started. Mostly, I was writing, at least in some sense, about things concerning Buddhism but often in sort of a snarky way.
Dukkha is the word that’s normally translated in English to “suffering,” as in “life is suffering.”
But, really, it has more of the sense of something being off-center, off-kilter. The image of a pottery wheel being off and throwing your pot out of whack often comes up.
And this applies to me (and according to Buddhism all of us). I’m one of those priviledged people who can’t truly say I’m “suffering” except if I count those many things of my own creation. And I create many types of dukkha in my own life. If life is Dukkha, then I’m DukkhaGirl, the Buddhist antihero.
I’m still interested in Buddhism and Zen. Still sitting, but currently having issues with getting my butt onto that cushion or, especially, to my Zendo, even though it’s a place of peace for me. But I’m not a teacher, I haven’t been to a sesshin for a long time.
And DukkhaGirl is mostly a personal blog, anyway, so I reserve the right to write about whatever I want, whether it’s Buddhist or not. So…nyah!
So you might find non-Buddhist book reviews, here, or just personal observations or “pearls of wisdom” (if I make that a category, I do so with a sense of irony). And if one of my other blogs goes down, this one may the amoeba that engulfs some of the other blog’s content.
I’m going to try to resave or rewrite some of what was on the original blog, for what it’s worth. Some is lost to time and memory, some is not worth rewriting. And other bits and pieces have been…saved by others without permission in various forms.
You’ve read enough lecturing posts about “why it’s important to have a morning routine” and things like that. Likely, I won’t write things in that vein, or post about the best zafus on Amazon (though I can’t promise that entirely).
You might find me writing about anything from Buddhist precepts to some of the dukkha from my childhood to an unrelated book review.
Who are you, DukkhaGirl?
When I was writing this blog v1, I went by “perplexity.”
Is writing under a pseudonym cowardly?
Many authors have done so.
While there is no real anonymity online, I write personal blog type stuff here under a pseudonym not so much because I’m afraid of people attributing the writing to me but because personal blog writing involves writing about other people. Sometimes family members, who many not want to be easily identified. Sometimes I’ll write more about that in another blog post.
As I said, I’m no Buddhist teacher. Not a “good” Zen student. Just a human being who likes to write, has decided that she no longer likes sending out query letters to get published, and likes having her own blog where she doesn’t have to worry about the sound of only one hand clapping on Medium.
Why did you end the original blog…and why the f@$! are you bringing it back?
The original blog ended for a few reasons: it got hacked and I got fed up. My Twitter account at the time got hacked. Both started spewing out ads and other nonsense (I want the only one spewing ads or nonsense on my blog to be me or someone else of my choosing!)
And the economy changed around 2008? Remember that? It had a significant impact on my family and forced me into going back into a career that I disliked, but paid well enough. (More Dukkha!)
Then I got confronted with a child’s diagnosis of autism, a parent’s diagnosis of ALS, subsequent feelings of exclusion for various reasons (yet more Dukkha!) and then an curmudgeonly elderly in-law (Dukkha extreme!)
Fortunately, things are mostly better now, I don’t know if blogging makes things better or worse. So I’m doing it for a bit but bringing back this one as a place to jot down my thoughts or let other do so if they want to guest post and can add something decently written. There are things I’ve written that seem to belong here rather than where they are. I don’t really like social media so, chances, are, if you want to follow things I’m posting on this blog you’ll need to subscribe to the newsletter or just pop back. DukkhaGirl doesn’t do TikTok, YouTube, or definitely not X!
I might get a BlueSky account for this blog. Maybe. Or maybe I’ll get on Instagram if I decide to quit all my other blogs and just have this personal one.
I don’t plan to post all the time. I may go through a period where I post a lot, and then when I don’t. I don’t plan to follow all of the tried and true rules of blogging success. This website is mostly here to give me a format for posting stuff, whether it’s personal essays, photos, or book reviews.