The Ever Imploding Blogworld with Guest Host Mr. T. S. O'Rama
T.S. O'Rama has the following observations on blogdom with respect to Mr. Tim Drake's departure from the world. (How does he [Mr. O'Rama] continue to come up with such interesting and thought-provoking little tidbits. One would think that he was thinking of them particularly for me--isn't that a lovely thought?):
Tim's post certainly offers much to ponder. I wonder if that little SiteMeter isn't the devil in disguise? A fellow would-be author and I were discussing writing. I said, "I wouldn't want to write just to get paid. I have to give them something important. But it can't be preachy...". He said, "To the contrary, you should write because you have to. You should write just for yourself, for no credit, even if no one is watching - that is pure." Interesting....
To which I would respond--his friend is probably at least mostly right. A writer writes because there is no alternative. I write because I cannot NOT write. I have thousands of pages of journals, notes, essays, poetry, half-finished fictions, lectios, you name it. I find the blog world wonderful and fascinating because people write things that you can then write more about. Then you can write about writing about them. And you can go places and find things to write about. Why not write so others can see and respond to it, rather than to print it and keep it gathering dust? But mostly I write because there is part of me that cannot imagine not writing. My day-time job involves a lot of writing, I write for my Carmelite newsletter, and when I am not writing I am thinking about what I will write next.
But then, those of you who read this blog regularly realize that it is literally impossible for me to shut up. Even on an off-day, a quiet moment, I run to three or four entries at a minimum. This is neither good nor bad, it simply is the way things are. Much of what I write is what I need to remember for myself. If others benefit, so much the better--but writing is a way (for me at least) to talk to God, to share with Him concerns, ideas, and reactions to things in the world. Admittedly, I don't do much in the way of current events, but that is because in large part I find them almost all to be tempests in teapots. There is a momentary surge of interest and then the next compelling item of the moment. Isn't it far better to dwell on things eternal--the loveliness of God, the efficacy of prayer, the need for Union with God.
Blogging isn't about expressing yourself--at least very few bloggers I see really use it as a personal forum to advance an agenda or a series of carefully considered observations. Rather it is more like notes for something really important--like prayer, like Life with God. Anyone who can make anything of the ramblings is welcome to enter--but audience share isn't what it is about--not even a little. It is about encountering others as they would like themselves to be. In the blogosphere you can know everyone without the blemishes, you can share lovely thoughts, sermons, notions, inventions, ordeals, and never have to know that the person regularly kicks their dog. And even if you do know it, it is easier to forgive.
The blogosphere can be practice for all sorts of things. When your get the nearly ubiquitous Error 104, you learn patience. When you encounter someone who you would really like to strangle and you bite your tongue and pray for them, you are learning love in action.
I love the blogosphere, I love the people I meet in it and I love many of the ideas I encounter. I love the challenges and opportunities it presents to me.
But when you boil it all down to the essence, I write because I cannot do otherwise. When there was no audience, I wrote. When my audience share declines to zero, I shall probably still write--whether or not it is done here, I cannot say. But I can say that there is one other very important opinion about writing to consider. Samuel Johnson is quoted as having said, "No one but a blockhead ever wrote for anything other than money." Oh well, maybe I should change the title of my blog to "Welcome Blockheads."
