As we journey forth into a new year, I've decided to do things a bit differently on ye olde blog. Even the paltry few posts I racked up last year have given me insight into what kind of content I want to post, and in a deeper sense, what I should spend my time thinking about.
I intend to be positive in my rhetoric. By this I do not mean happy affirmations such as "Every day in every way I am getting better and better. Then I grab the shotgun." No, I simply mean that it is better to provide workable alternatives than criticize. It is better to persuade rather than attack--though I shall hurl mockery at the truly deserving. And in imaginative matters, it is better to put into practice than theorize.
Writing this blog has surprised me because I orginally intended it to be a creative outlet, a venue to think out loud more socially acceptable than muttering to myself in the library men's room. Possibly even a way to trick myself into writing fiction. Rather I have turned out far more political content than I'd intended. I might be forgiven because I, like so many others today, have been booted into uncomfortable intimacy with the unwinding of our economy; our flagrant, dissolute budgetary and tax policy, reaching back several administrations; and our inexplicable indulgence as a society for malignant ideas.
Moreover, I regret my previous apathy and inaction. This while the country overall is going through a defining crisis, a political and cultural transformation, where our civil society finally comes to terms with its long flirtation with fashionable statism and cultural relativism.
In the final analysis, blogs are simply streams of opinions, and the latter, like anuses, are ubiquitous. The world doesn't need another streaming anus. It is more than a little presumptuous to set out writing in hopes of changing people's minds im Großen und Ganzen, so perhaps I'm simply inviting others to my own thoughts.
There are good arguments for having no political commentary at all on one's blog, and I've considered these carefully. For now it shall remain, for it is not so much a matter of shouting slogans as a concern about basic freedoms. And it is an integral part of who I am. Nevertheless, life comprises so many other matters, and I must try not to neglect these.
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I've enjoyed your blog posts to date, and You've really struck a chord with me with this one.
ReplyDeleteOne of my most siginificant social handicaps of late is that I have diffculty participating in a conversation that focuses on some great wrongness or evil, and everyone piles on with their personal version of why this thing is wrong or evil, and the others merely form a greek chorus behind the speaker.
I have a need to talk about "what we can do about it" and become bored/frustrated when folks feel compelled to spend 45 minutes venting their righteous indignation on a subject, unfettered by fact or rationality.
I feel I should be more politically active as well, and I hamstrung by current lifestyle of trying to work in greater DC and maintain a family relationship in WV.
This seems to be your single candle - truly 'tis better to keep lighting it than to curse the darkness