It has been a while since I have posted anything of substance, I know. This past week I spent most of it in New Jersey and Philadelphia. Faced with a choice of blogging after a long day , or eating-well I took the latter option. After that I collapsed on the bed. My apologies.
Yesterday, this blog turned 4 years old. I guess in blog years that makes the blog middle aged. (I’m assuming blog years are like dog years and the average blog only lives to be 6 or so….). During this past week I’ve been trying to assimilate my thoughts on the current state of my erstwhile hobby. I’m not sure where I stand on the matter anymore-I can feel my ambivalency level rising.
I began this blog out of a sense of frustration responding to a huge personal disappointment in my life; created by nothing but sheer stupidity on the part of other people……..on the part of the “big bad establishment”. My disgust with their belief that their position in life gave them even one iota of control of how I should live mine;- or worse yet, some idea that they had any right, ANY RIGHT AT ALL, to judge the manner in which I lived mine. More importantly, they did not have a right to tell me how to live it.
Had that situation gone the way it was supposed to, I would be in a much , much, different and better place. I would be living where I want to be living, with an eye to the future that would have kept me there for a long long time. Because of the evil indifference of some key people, I’m am now stuck struggling to get where I want to be, branded as I am with some other person’s view of how they think I ought to be. Screw that.
Furthermore, my passion with the hobby itself has begun to fade somewhat. Not because I still do not have things to say, but rather by my increasing inability to get people to listen to it. Blogging is a lot like meeting a woman. When you first start you are excited by her newness and novelty. Its only later that you start to see the reality of her features.
Like all bloggers, I had that fantasy that someone of influence would pick up on my writing and become enraptured with it, enough so to enable a transition to a living based upon it. Sadly, as the years and the hit counter have proven-that’s not going to be the case. Its probably like my oppressors listed above-blogs have a self fulfilling tendency to slot people into types. If you do not fit one of those, it does not matter how well you write-the crowds just are not there.
For me, I like to write about all kinds of things. And unlike a lot of people who share my background, the “all American”, Ozzie and Harriet, typical American middle class existence shares no attraction anymore. The suburban utopia, now that I have tried it twice as a matter of fact, simply sucks. Fuck the house and yard, fuck the simple existence of going to work, going home, and living the typical family life. Give me an apartment in Asia, money to live on and some night life-and I am happier than most of them. In general, people from a military background regard such sentiments as nothing short of heretical. The fact that I refuse to embrace, a conservative brand of politics along side that rejection of so called “family values” simply accelerates the flame of their anger. Yet over 30+ years-it too has not delivered the desired results.
Which leads me to my big fault with the blogosphere. It demands-over time-a conformity to a certain “type”. For example, in my early blogging career I had a chance to get linked to a big time “lefty” blog. They liked my aversion to George W. Bush-they hated the fact that I felt a special place in hell should be reserved for Pat Schroeder. The result was no link. On the other side of the aisle-most of the “true believers” just can’t stand the fact that after 6 years: 1) I still feel the Iraq war was a mistake, 2) Afghanistan will fail as a nation no matter what we do and 3) that the so called “war on terror” , as currently defined, cannot be won. On the domestic front-I’ve still not come to an acceptance that simply making the rich, richer-while not addressing the fundamental needs of the masses of people- somehow makes the nation stronger. 30+ years of adult life have shown me the folly of that point of view. That does not, unlike the opinion of some, make me a socialist.
More importantly, I’ve yet to come to understand, the herd of commenters. Many blogs claim that they endeavor to embrace “honest dialogue” , but the comment herd will quickly descend upon an comment author who writes an opinion counter to the prevailing view of the blog. The word “troll” gets quickly thrown out-or worse yet, the blog author either simply bans them, or holds them up to ridicule. In the meantime, the rest of the herd-will applaud the author of the blog for his wisdom, which in spite of how well written it is-generally constitutes right wing tripe. Or left wing tripe. Same phenomenon, different writers.
Which brings me back to my own personal blogging dilemma. I want to continue, and I will. But I can tell some of the old fire has gone out. On too many days, the desire simply to jump through the screen and club someone to death, wins out over the impulse to master the written word and argue their point -point by counter point. Especially if I read morons like this one and this one.
The need to find the spark of originality is there-lost a lot when you compare my early posts to my later ones. I’ve got to find the time to branch out some-and rise above the noise that is the military blogosphere.
Truth be told, my favorite blogs remain the expat ones-a lot of whom are linked to upon this page. Who tell the tale of dealing with life in every day terms-or more importantly, reiterate the point that the US does not have a lock on good ideas or a great standard of living. Or more simply, just talk about the wonder of living life each day. A lot of times that is just better than hearing about the latest failings of Barak Obama-or the latest hallucination of Sarah Palin.
Of course there is another possibility-that my current funk simply echoes a greater dissatisfaction with what I am doing and where I am in my life versus where I should be. This past Christmas I bought a coffee mug to place on my desk -to remind me not to lose sight of my goal: “Go confidently in the direction your dreams-LIVE THE LIFE you have imagined“. Some days I am inspired by that thought-others not so much. I think to myself,”That’s rich. I would be the person I aspire to be if others would stop telling what I aspire to become. And if I could just forget about these annoying things like paying the bills.”
But of course the day you stop trying to get what you want is the day you start to die. This year, I know where I want to go-still not so sure how I want to get there. And in the meantime I will still keep blogging.
Because-as E @ L pointed out:
So fragile our humanity, so tenuous our grasp on civility.
Our existence, it needs constant monitoring.
It needs people who push back:
– Against the unthinking crowd.
– Against the mindless masses.
– Against popularity, fashion.
– Against what is initially perceived as fun, as amusing.
– Against thinking that you can’t make a difference.
– Against not seeing that you do have a choice.
Going AGAINST the flow.… THIS is the role of gonzo bloggers, of artists.
The rolls of those who do that-has got to include me. So on I will press.
Here’s to me!