How much is this you?
You must you have something to look forward to.
You are are always facining upstream, as the shark does: move or asphixiate.
You think you constantly hold near an idea of the one great thing or experience
that will make you happy, as if all else would waste your time.
Yet the little pleasure that is in reach does tide you over for now
and only later on shows itself to be just another among the litter of small "nows",
Blurring into a past that predicates as blurry a future.
But negotiation is always tainted with loss or dillution and
"Other" a synonym for the imperfections of existence?
How right, or off the mark, is this guy? Are the riposts of the bloggers that comment there definsiveness or observation?
7 comments:
I find myself thinking of blind persons examining an elephant.
Er, I should clarify:
The linked opinion piece at the end of your post reminds me of the old, old story of blind persons attempting to describe an elephant...
Ouch! All of the comments on that opinion piece, disparate as they are, struck a chord in me. There appear to be as many reasons for blogging as there are people doing it.
I just have to wonder if too many people have forgotten that the computer (and blogging) are TOOLS. They are TOOLS for achieving another goal; they shouldn't be the final prize.
I have to laugh. The author is generalizing and cannot see the forest for its trees. He seems to see cyberspace as a place where only odd little hermits go to fantasize. Truth to tell, my life has been enriched, in a most realistic sense, by some the people that I have encountered by chance while blogging. Through my blogging, relationships (as real as real can be) have only added to my wonderful group of already-established relationships. Friends, regardless of how you meet them, help to make life fuller and far more interesting. A book won't talk back to you. Sit down a few moments and read an article on the internet and discuss it immediately with others. Imagine doing that twenty years ago.
I can see the effect of net-related political activism, and it's just the beginning of what James Moore called the "second superpower."
Yeah, I'm a little weird. But then again, aren't we all in some way? ;)
Weird? Jude, your experience sounds familiar to me.
Not that an online existence, uninformed by the feelings we usually associate with normal human contact, working and talking face to face etc is not possible....but neither can I imagine it being satisfying enough to keep up.
I think the "reality" of our online activity and communication is just what ever life we had to begin with. It is, as Kurt points out, and as I describe in my "21st century tool use" post, a tool. As with other tools, it is just a mulitplier of whatever strengths and skills we innately have. If you come to the 'net as a politically sensitive and involved individual who wants to make things better, you are just going to become that much more involved and effective.
Personally, the opportunity first to speak out, then to find out others had similar views, has led to very concrete changes in my life, particularly my involvment in Operation Democracy's grassroots political organizing.
I'm a bit late to the party but I was lonely and isolated until I discovered blogs. It was nearly a year before I got up the courage to have my own. I do it for my granddaughters, to give them some idea of who I am, what I think and what interests me. I print out the posts and put them in folders in case the internet implodes. The old "Trust No-0ne" complex.
Jahteh:
and you are not the only one to benefit from your putting your unique voice on line. The well grounded soul, wherever that ground is, is always a helpful source.
I too write with one eye on posterity. For various reasons, most of my friends and family and most especially my employer never heard of greensmile nor his blog nor have any idea that I blog. But my kids knew, were told, pretty soon after I started blogging. I have stopped printing out the archives though...we will burn all the trees on the planet long before googles servers fall silent. but we may start having to pay to get at them:(
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