It's a peculiar curiosity. It's such a simple word, though it can carry a lot of weight. It's the easiest question to ask (and probably earliest). It's certainly the most frequently asked. I asked it to myself today, with reference to my humble existence in the blogosphere.
Why?
I decided to actually transcribe my answer, my "because", as though answering a question asked on a test, a survey--or by a psychiatrist. It's a true exercise in introspection.
Q: Why does anyone care what I have to say? In the rapid-fire Information Age, where Facebook is quickly becoming the lead source of information and "google" is a dictionary verb (seriously, it is. I'd encourage you all to look it up, but most of you don't have a print-copy dictionary; a faction of you don't remember how to use one, anyway), what is compelling about my own ideas and opinions? Who cares, and why should they?
A: In short, there is no concrete answer, none that is right, anyway. Few people actually care what I (or you) have to say, and an equally diminutive minority can be bothered to divulge themselves in my opinions (or yours). This is largely--in my opinion--due to the "modernistic" lifestyle that patronises our culture. "We're modern," we boast, "look at the advances we've made and make. Look at what we have learned. Look how fashionable we are, how capable, intuitive, progressive, healthy, and sympathetic."But culturally, we are not. We ignore our cultural dogmas so much that we only think we are modern, advanced, learned, fashionable, capable, intuitive, progressive, healthy, sympathetic. Of course, I'm generalising. But the fact of the matter is, most people out there would rather watch half an hour of Family Guy than spend half an hour with their family. Good for them, if that is truly fulfilling--better for Seth Rogen.
Society as it is now thrives almost entirely on the Internet, so that our physical surroundings are a more hypotheical reality; our real social interaction is through social media. What could be more provocative to the Western modern psyche than a matrimony of the words "social" and "media"? That's like hearing the word "sex" at your high school prom: "Who said that? I want in." It's as sad as it is abstruse. Alas, hope: I'm, yet again, generalising.
Those who care about my (and your) ideas and opinions care because they harbour and value their own real, bursting, passionate ideas and opinions. Who cares is who still enjoys engaging ideas, literature, and lifestyles; they care because of a similar invested interests, and similar values. They don't see my approach (i.e. using the internet/social media) as hypocritical, but necessary. They are not ostensibly cultured, but cultured enough as to be unorthodox within "modern" culture.
Bit by bit, this blog builds itself. That's an unorthodox approach, like blind-shooting friendly-fire. This post has aided the construction, just a bit; I have somewhat more of a bearing, a direction for this blog to follow. But this is all one massive experiment: can an intangible, impersonal, inorganic creation grow and mature and become valid? Why not.
I hope commenting is allowed here. Don't be so discouraged if this comment has not much to do with your post. I will explain.
ReplyDeleteI did have quite a number of different blogs. And in recent ones I kept following the ideal in the last paragraph: keep shooting people with your ideas and something (and your identity) would be constructed. I even had posts similar to this in many of those (naturally I was very surprised reading this) -- I recently realised that for me, blog is perhaps not the best form for this. So I have a project on that end, but I digress.
My experience tells me with these sort of blogs, people generally have problem keeping up. People say your blog needs to address an ongoing theme or interest to be successful. By being successful, of course it means being famous in the blogosphere and getting hits. But I think I never really went with that. And I guess you won't. But I do hope by now, people will look at posts separately and learn to read posts ... that they need to learn to read. But again I digress.
So I hope you keep this going, because I never had enough to follow-through even with knowing how people tend to only look at their own reflections. Hence my comment that you shouldn't be discouraged if this has not much to do with your post.