Blogging: An online conversation with no one and everyone

I must confess a certain dislike of instances when people blog for the sake of blogging, or even when they blog about blogging.
Actually, what aggravates me most is when someone posts simply to say that they have nothing to say. Not only is it patently not true, it's also rather pointless...
(This is why there are often such long times between posting on this blog and the other...I simply have nothing to say that I don't mind sharing with the entire cyber-world.)
Only slightly less disliked are the posts that discuss why someone blogs. If you write a post about why you write about your life on your blog, wouldn't your time be better spent writing about your life?
This disclaimer comes, now, to the ironic point of saying that this is almost, I repeat, almost one of those sorts of posts. I am deeply sorry if anyone reading this is anything like me.


I was thinking today about why some people think that they can't write. Most often, their excuse is that they lack subject matter. I believe this is hogwash. Anyone with a decent brain and an operable set of five sense (or maybe even four or three, depends on what they are) is capable of writing.  I seems to me that subject matter is all around us.  In a way, there is enough subject matter between my hairy toes and my hairy head to make for a lifetime of inspiration for a blog.  Please don't think I'm just being conceited, either.  Every human is living a story that is worth telling, because it is a true story.

Equally often heard is, "I don't have time." This is a more valid complaint, but still, pretty lame.  We have time for what we make time for.  More simply, in the words of some wise housewife, "Where there's a will, there's a way."  Simple enough, right?  But when there are so many other things to do, so many things that take up our time... why should we worry about telling our story to the five people who might eventually read our blog?  

Now this is the main point...  From my point of view, blogging, at least  the kind of blogging that I do (meaning, non-political, non-societal, and really mostly unimportant to all but those who know me), really isn't for an audience.  I mean, it does make it more fun when you know that people read what you write, and when they respond to it, but really, blogging is like a conversation with no one, and with everyone.  (Just now the thought crossed my mind that this post really couldn't make less sense...)  For me, it's a way of processing my thoughts and feelings in public without having to worry about interruptions.  Essentially, I'm telling my story, and because I'm putting it in writing, I have the time to figure out some of the plot and foreshadowing, and maybe, once in a while, the moral.

So...tell your story to yourself, and the world, so you can figure out what it means, so you can be so excited that you can't wait for the next episode.

How's that for a moral?  :-)

"And in spite of this, we call this Friday good..."

Without having a deep background in a liturgical church, I have little space and few words with which to expound on the attitude of deep, sacramental sadness that pervades my thoughts.

The best language that I can muster, in terms of the weight of this day, are ones of  a sinking feeling of monumental loss.  You can see them in every successful portrayal of the story of the Passion.  In the faces of the apostate apostles-to-be, who have now been robbed of their one and only hope.  In the manner of the confused onlookers, who followed Him out of curiosity, now overwhelmed that their charismatic leader could come to such a sad end.  In the demeanor of those who rashly demanded his death, knowing not that the one that they condemned was the judge of the world, you see the emptiness that comes with rejecting their creator.  You feel it in the soul of Peter, having betrayed his master, and having watched Him die.

It has been said that we must train our sentiments.  Let us, this one week, these three days of the year, feel the depth of pain that bought redemption for our errors.

I find it appropriate to first mourn the death of Christ before celebrating His Resurrection.

All is vanity, vanity, vanity...

I am impressed (depressed, maybe?) with the utter temporality of what I just got done doing.

Writing essays for college applications, which probably will only get looked at once, and even if they do get me scholarships (which is doubtful, but possible), It will be money, and nothing more.

Maybe the only thing you can really get out of this sort of thing is learning. I could get all the scholarships in the world, and blow an Oxford education partying in the pubs.
It's really kinda lousy when you turn 18 and suddenly realize,
"Shoot, I have to be responsible for myself now..." It isn't all it was cracked up to be, y'know.

Maybe learning is all you can really get out of life, I don't know...

Learn to Love learning, for those two are all that really counts.
(nice catch phrase for a personal motto, eh?)

Now Abideth Faith, Hope, and Love, but the Greatest of these is Love.
(now THERE's a motto for ya'... :-P)

Depression and Worry...

...Are horrible.
Period. (just in case you didn't notice the one that I put in)
I don't know where they come from, but they distort your perspective and make you wish you lived in a monastery in Siberia, when what you're depressed or worried about really isn't that bad. It's all about perspective.
This isn't going to make me die... It isn't even going to ruin the rest of my life... It isn't going to ruin the rest of my academic career, it isn't even going to ruin my year. It isn't going to cost me money, most likely, and if it does, what's money, anyhow... Chances are, this isn't even going to ruin my week. Just one day, and even that's iffy...

I just wish I had seen all this yesterday...and the day before...and the day before...
Oh well...I know it now.

Thank God for perspective...

Names

"What is in a name? That which we call a rose, by any other name, would smell as sweet..."

Yes, I know, it's cliched... It's one of the few lines of Shakespeare that everybody knows.

But what if Shakespeare was wrong?
Maybe the Montagues should be proud of their heritage, no?

I like my name. It's not so much because it's a wonderful sounding name, or because it rolls off the tongue, like Theophilus de Gorgonzola the Fifth, or even because my name is spelled correctly, unlike some others that are pronounced the same way. I like my name because it means me. Whatever Shakespeare says about the utter randomness and illogicity of family feuds in Verona, names are important.

Names are important because we have no other handle on the true existence of something. We can describe an object or a person, but only in terms of other things. People have intmimated, for instance, that describing me is nearly impossible. However, all it takes for someone to invoke the experiences and images connected with me is my name being spoken.

When words fail, there are names.

O, Light Invisible, we glorify Thee...

Isn't it odd?
What's invisible is often, indeed more often than not, more important than what we can see. But when we experience it, we know its true value.

To borrow an illustration from one of my favorite books, the sun is this way. Itself a paradox, we cannot bear to look at it, but by it, of all things, we are able to look at everything else.

While the above analogy is good, it (like all analogies) isn't infinitely perfect. We can sort of see the sun, if we squint our eyes, or if we're foolish enough (like Sir Newton) to look it in the face, risking damage to our eyes. There is another kind of light, however, which is not so easy to see. A light so powerful that none who are unworthy can bear it's intense beam, a light that purifies as well as illuminates, by which we understand all things, but which, of itself, cannot be understood.

To have your soul bathed in invisible light, is there anything greater?