I don't really believe in early adoption, or even on-time adoption, so if you're thinking to yourself incredulously, "Starting a blog in 2004?", that's my excuse.
Even worse, i've already gone through the phase where all my friends were starting blogs, and getting into each other's blogs, and telling me, "*You* should start a blog. You could blog with us! It'll be great!"
Even worse still, when i declared that i was going to South America, my friends redoubled their efforts: "Keep a blog so we know what's going on! You can write about all your adventures! It'll be great!"
And now, here we are. My friends are over their own and other people's blogs, and i've failed miserably in my erstwhile mission to turn pieces of the South America trip into anything other than ephemeral, non-recorded anecdotes with which to bore co-workers and other casual acquaintances. And don't think i don't see that glassy look in your eyes when i start yet another sentence with, "I was in $CITY_PRONOUNCED_WITH_CONSPICUOUS_AND_POOR_LATIN_ACCENT". Cuz i do see it, mister.
I still haven't even really decided that this blog thing is a good idea. Let me tell you more about that.
I believe journaling -- recording thoughts, feelings, events for yourself -- is a really good idea. I believe writing -- recording thoughts, feelings, events for others -- is a really good idea. I believe mixing these two things is self-indulgent and dangerous. Self-indulgent because of all the "Today i woke up, took a shower, brushed my teeth, walked 46 paces to my car, drove at an average speed of 36 mph to work, ..." journal blogs. This paragraph sucks. Forget it.
I have a strong tendency to self-importance which, as i have aged, i have sought to temper. Having a journal which you expect other people to read smacks foully of self-importance. And even though i've been thinking about this for a while, and telling myself, "well, i won't publish it. I won't even mention it. People who really want to find it will find it, and i won't advertise it. There. That way, if you read it, it's *your* fault." Watch, i'm going to switch the metaphor again, and abandon yet another paragraph.
Journaling is masturbation. I'm highly in favor of masturbation. In fact, i masturbate *ALL THE TIME*. I am masturbating right now, as i write this[1].
Blogging is public masturbation. When you masturbate publicly, it becomes something different. If it's for a loving audience, then it's exhibitionism, or porn, or performance art. If it's for a captive audience, it's indecent exposure, a lewd and lascivious act, and possibly corruption of a minor. It may be hard for you to imagine how a website could possibly have a captive audience, but if you know me and i come up to you and say, "HEY I HAVE A BLOG", that's at least an implicit request to come look at it, which you, as someone who knows me, is at least a little obligated to oblige.
Let's move on from this subtopic.
In fact, maybe let's move on entirely. Except to say that before i wrote this sentence here, i had written 545 words in this initial entry. If that isn't self-indulgence, i'm not a man in need of a blowjob.
Some people say, or at least imply, that i make everything too complicated. I don't ever really bother to disagree.
Here are some more things that this entry made me think about that i'm not going to write about right now (and thus, not ever):
- The importance of editing in published work (where a blog's status as "published" is perhaps dubious, but certainly more published than a private journal).
- The attitude i feel i need to have towards my audience in a blog to maintain its purity as either a journal or a published work. Having an audience for my masturbation fundamentally changes a lot of things about it. Should i pretend to ignore the audience, or should i engage them? What role do reader's (publically-available, right-along-side-the-content) comments have in this? Would i be more of a journalistic purist if i turned them off? How conscious of an audience is too conscious, and how deliberately unconscious is just being an asshole?
- One of the strongest selling points of this blogging business is that, audience or no, self-aggrandizement or no, as long as i stick with it i'll be writing *something*, which i think is really the point.
- Of course, my deep-seated laziness essentially guarantees that this blog, like many projects before it, will lie fallow and useless in the ether.
[music: Bob Marley - Lively Up Yourself]
[cf: The Berenstein Bears, Clerks]
[1] Not really. Well, metaphorically, really, but not literally really.