Sunday, June 29, 2008
there is always a first time
This is the inaugural piece of my blog. Being a neophyte in this business, I obviously don’t know what to say and where to start. I do feel however like standing at the edge of a precipice with a voice behind me shouting “jump”. The loud reverberating echoes are insistent. I take the plunge into the great unknown before the last faint echo. There is no turning back.
Is this a confessional? Why do people put up a “web log”? Are we would be Captain Kirks on a virtual Enterprise trekking through the boundless spaces of the universe hoping we might chance upon some kind of extraterrestrial “intelligent” life? An unanswered question that I have yet to find satisfactory answers in the phenomenon and wonder called the Internet. I see these possibilities – an opportunity for instant publishing for the more cerebral types, a spilling of guts for the alienated who think they have found a congenial home in the anonymity of the Internet, or plainly, a conveniently ethereal sounding board for those who have the unexplainable urge to speak and be heard. How many people read your blog (or will read mine)? Does it matter?
Why do you read blogs? Is there an educational value to these writings, ramblings and rantings? What sustains a blog in the cacophony of voices similarly eager to be heard or establish their mark if need be, in one outrageous form or another? There are perhaps countless virtual communities of shared interests, thoughts, ideology, inclinations, values that give people a fora for expressing (or “sharing”) their ideas, and for the brave hearts - their well reasoned arguments or polemics. Should people respond positively or negatively, what then? Am I supposed to feel a sense of community, validation, even purpose in life?
I write perhaps from the need to express myself more clearly. In today’s world of sound bites and shallow manipulative news reporting we seem to be regressing to a high technology but uncivilized society, where the art of writing is fast disappearing as our ability to comprehend and synthesize the world grows less and less as events unfold in rapid succession. We live discontinuous and incomprehensible lives, a “future shock” that has not only arrived but fully engulfs us with the result that we develop ever shorter attention spans. The numbness is no longer excruciating. The “big picture” recedes farther and farther from our grasp. I have been led to believe that writing can help us make sense of our world. But it is a difficult art that can only be cultivated through practice in the same way that we develop our minds through reading, and reading voraciously. Only through persistent practice may we someday achieve the facility of writing euphoniously and experience the sublime joy of seeing our thoughts come magnificently alive in words.
From the edge of the precipice, I fall headlong as a “freely falling body” just like it was described in high school and college physics with that strange sounding acceleration squared coefficient. I dream of reaching a parallel universe where good triumphs over evil and justice prevails. I leave the “peace on earth” part to Miss Universe contestants.
Is this a confessional? Why do people put up a “web log”? Are we would be Captain Kirks on a virtual Enterprise trekking through the boundless spaces of the universe hoping we might chance upon some kind of extraterrestrial “intelligent” life? An unanswered question that I have yet to find satisfactory answers in the phenomenon and wonder called the Internet. I see these possibilities – an opportunity for instant publishing for the more cerebral types, a spilling of guts for the alienated who think they have found a congenial home in the anonymity of the Internet, or plainly, a conveniently ethereal sounding board for those who have the unexplainable urge to speak and be heard. How many people read your blog (or will read mine)? Does it matter?
Why do you read blogs? Is there an educational value to these writings, ramblings and rantings? What sustains a blog in the cacophony of voices similarly eager to be heard or establish their mark if need be, in one outrageous form or another? There are perhaps countless virtual communities of shared interests, thoughts, ideology, inclinations, values that give people a fora for expressing (or “sharing”) their ideas, and for the brave hearts - their well reasoned arguments or polemics. Should people respond positively or negatively, what then? Am I supposed to feel a sense of community, validation, even purpose in life?
I write perhaps from the need to express myself more clearly. In today’s world of sound bites and shallow manipulative news reporting we seem to be regressing to a high technology but uncivilized society, where the art of writing is fast disappearing as our ability to comprehend and synthesize the world grows less and less as events unfold in rapid succession. We live discontinuous and incomprehensible lives, a “future shock” that has not only arrived but fully engulfs us with the result that we develop ever shorter attention spans. The numbness is no longer excruciating. The “big picture” recedes farther and farther from our grasp. I have been led to believe that writing can help us make sense of our world. But it is a difficult art that can only be cultivated through practice in the same way that we develop our minds through reading, and reading voraciously. Only through persistent practice may we someday achieve the facility of writing euphoniously and experience the sublime joy of seeing our thoughts come magnificently alive in words.
From the edge of the precipice, I fall headlong as a “freely falling body” just like it was described in high school and college physics with that strange sounding acceleration squared coefficient. I dream of reaching a parallel universe where good triumphs over evil and justice prevails. I leave the “peace on earth” part to Miss Universe contestants.
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