Posts from — April 2007

It figures that Mr. Vonnegut could better say in two sentences–and, unlike myself, without sounding like a prat–what I struggled to say in my entire last post.

Life happens too fast for you ever to think about it. If you could just persuade people of this, but they insist on amassing information.

So it goes.

I find myself issuing this rather odd statement primarily because a few of my most valued readers have been nagging bugging inquiring as to why I am not posting to my blog more frequently. (You know who you are. Yes, I am looking at you.)

I have not been adding text daily because this is not a blog¹. Please don’t get me wrong. I am not blog-adverse. I read lots of blogs, keep my feed reader open all day, and even had a blog myself for a while. It is just that I am constitutionally unfit to be a blogger.

My brilliant nephew, who is a gifted designer and all-around web monkey, once said “Non-current information is BLASPHEMY! I need it in RSS or I cannot consume. In addition, information older than 22.4 days is stale and not to be consumed.” While he was kidding², he voices an opinion common to many bloggers, readers and other info-junkies.

Blogging is usually fast and frequent–whether it is breaking news³, personal updates⁴, or rapid one-shots linked to some new item of interest⁵–blog readers seek a constant flow of the new. I, on the other hand, am slow, and seeking to become slower.

What we often lose with quick hits of information is context. We have lots of data, but little reflection and contemplation of what it means⁶. I’m finding that while I have access to ever more information, I seem to have less access to integrated and deeper knowledge⁷.

So, I’m not contributing to the sound and the fury. I’m going to take my time and reflect on the things that matter to me. If something moves me to write, then I’ll write, and hopefully it will be worth reading⁸.

In addition, political blogging wears me out and makes me tend towards the vicious ⁹. Blogging tends to encourage me to mock, to take the easy shots, to be negative. I detach, rather than engage. I know some bloggers who are so steeped in irony that I don’t think even they know when they are being ironic¹⁰, but I don’t want to be one of them.

When I blog, I lock in on professional politics, or the daily outrage. It’s easier for me to be angry than thoughtful, to sling invective¹¹rather than try to seek insight¹².

So, I won’t be putting up new material as often as I did as a blogger, but I hope when I do, it’s a little better thought-out than my blog posts tended to be and still something you would like to read. So, pick up my feed with your reader, and come back when there is something new¹³.

1. Surely, at first glance, saying “this is not a blog” seems to fail the duck test–that is, if it looks like a duck, walks like a duck, and swims like a duck, it’s a duck. While this website looks like a blog, runs on a popular blogging platform, and has all the trappings and indicia of bloggery, it is not, I assure you, intended to be a blog.
2. Sort of. At least I think so, since he followed this proclamation with “I am a stabbing robot.“
3. “This just in–U.S. invades Canada, freeing up our strategic poutine reserves”
4. “Today, we laid down the new tiles in the bathroom, I gave birth to twins, and little Ben made biodiesel in kindergarten with organic soybeans we grew ourselves.”
5. All hail Boing-Boing!
6. This issue is not new–newspapers give reportage with little context, the weekly and monthly magazines are supposed to serve as platforms for analysis and expert opinion, all while selling soap and toothpaste, of course.
7. And can I even mention wisdom without getting heaped with scorn? It may be a concept that may seem less and less relevant modernly, but seems more and more necessary in my day-to-day life.
8. If it isn’t, then, at least, there won’t be a lot of it to offend your delicate sensibilities, Dr. Johnson.
9. Think I’m kidding? Did you even go look at my old blog? Even I hate me.
10. They are still often funny.
11. Even funny invective. Yes, I’m talking to you.
12. I don’t think I’m any more insightful or profound than the next guy. In fact, I suspect I’m probably less so–too much book-readin’, not enough livin’. Still, why aspire to your basest level?
13. You don’t know what a feed reader is? What are you doing on teh interwebnets? Go get your stone axe and kill me a mastodon, caveman.