A year.

Sounds like a lot, sometimes.

On the other hand, calendars feel more anachronistic to me by the day. I'm not really affected about crop-cycles anymore (although, to think that this is also true for everyone, or even for a majority of a population of the world, would be self-delusion of ridiculous proportions). But it's a fun tradition, so hey, keep it up then.

Come on, stop with the cynical socio-historical commentary. How is it so far? The whole blogging experience?

Good, good! (whistles, attempting to look busy).

That's all you're going to say?

Apparently, yes.

Poohey. Whatever happened to self-expression, the free exchange of ideas, and so on and so forth?

Oh, come on. What can I say? The usual? About how blogging has affected my life? How I've found new friends through it? How I think that what we thought was cyberspace, that first look at a webpage downloading, wasn't? That is was just dead information, bits that glowed static on the screen? How I think that only now, that our digital life is coming on its own, related but independent of the rest, is when cyberspace is really happening?

How I still can't explain what the hell blogging is, exactly, and yet I can't seem to stop doing it?

Well, everybody knows that. And if they don't, they should. I should too. I tend to forget sometimes (they tell me that's not so uncommon). I tend to be so immersed in other things that I sometimes, just sometimes, forget about what's going on inside myself. Or that's what it wouldd seem. Other times, I realize that maybe the world is changing so radically that the pervasiveness, the ease, of communication, is reshaping not just our sense of community, but also our sense of self. As if we didn't have enough problems...

Hey, you're getting a little preachy there...

Who isn't preachy? But okay-- point taken. To let someone else do the talking, here's a piece of monologue from the movie Hurlyburly (which can be easily mistaken for a misoginistic/misanthropic movie, but that, on closer inspection, reveals that not only it really cares, but that it also longs for a world were those two words, among other things, are turned into historical artifacts).

We've got Eddie (played by Sean Penn), ripped and totally drunk, rambling:

I mean... the Aborigines... had their problems too. Sure. You know... tigers in the trees... dogs after his food... and in the middle ages... everybody really had to worry about ... witches and goblins. But we have this stuff eating at us. We've got stuff we don't even...

I mean, why do you think that all the warlords of the world are so anxious to get their own personal little stash of chemical weapons? They call them weapons of mass destruction, but they're not. They are very, very selective. Chemical weapons are very careful about what they destroy. They anihilate ...people... and preserve... things. They loooove things.

You and I would be dead. Gas. Puke. Gone. Whereas, you know, other, earlier, older people... the ancients... could look to the heavens... which in their minds was inhabited by this ... thoughtful, meditative, you know... maybe a trifle unpredictable and wrathful... but nevertheless up there... this divine onlooker.

We've got... anchorpersons and... talking heads. We've got politicians who decide life and death issues on the basis of their media consultants. That's what we've got.

To which Bonnie (played by Meg Ryan, in one of her few non-insipid roles) replies, a little later:

You know if your manner of speech is any way a reflection of what goes on inside your head, you're lucky you can tie your shoes.

Okay, so can you tie your shoes?

I was taught how to do it, like everyone. But then I lost track somehow. Discovered other methods. Engaged in shoe-tying research. At some point (years ago) I used those fancy ones with Velcro, which I later found out to be made in sweatshops around the world and consequently grew disgusted with, and threw away... and I ended up slightly disgusted with the whole shoe-tying experience. Like everyone else, I still have to tie my shoes once in a while, but when I can I use loafers.

I definitely prefer loafers.

You know what I meant. I wasn't talking about shoes.

Me neither. :)

Categories: personal
Posted by diego on July 11 2003 at 5:05 PM