Of Blogs and Blogging

Bloggers, on average, are irritating people. They're usually self-absorbed, thinking people care about what they ate for breakfast and saw on the drive to work. They're usually egotistical, thinking their previously under-appreciated writing talents will one day be discovered. They're usually annoying, whiny people who the internet afforded a place to whine annoyingly.

But not all of them. Some just like having an outlet to write in. If you stop writing with an audience in mind, then the writing becomes more worthy of an audience. People can tell when things are thinly veiled attempts at catering to readers who really don't exist. Some people are just passionate about a subject and need a place to pour all the creative energy their hobby or lifestyle creates into something outside of themselves. Others blog to chronicle their own lives; there's something interesting about watching yourself progress, month by month, along the sidebar of the blog.

But the former types of bloggers give bloggers everywhere a bad name. It's easy to dump on the idea, and it's easy for the concept to become another technology-created narcissistic fad. The only real way to save it from being such a thing is to use it in a more meaningful way.

Sure, I could type all these thoughts onto a word document in my computer, but I know I wouldn't write with such regularity (arguably regular, anyhow) without such a specific place to go to write. That date on the blogger dashboard shows me how long it's been since I've sat and thought about where my mind is at (which seems kind of odd... thinking about where your mind is at, but that's truly what it feels like). It's easy to get caught up in the humdrum of life and forget to think about anything at all. I don't think there's anything narcissistic about evaluating life from time to time, and I know I can't do that effectively without writing.

Writing is so, so precious, and blogs are one of the few places on the internet that really allow the good, productive sort of writing. It takes no thought to write a 140-character "witticism," but it takes thought to plan out an entire blog entry. If only people would write thoughtful blogs, and people would give thoughtful blogs a chance, they could be something meaningful. But the internet is not the place for anything meaningful much, and it's overly idealistic to think that could happen.

I follow quite a few blogs and a few them are truly good. The people writing them are the sort of people I might like to know in real life, but since I can't, I can reap the benefits of their thoughts and productivity and insight through blogger. I don't see how that can be anything but good.

When I go off to college, I will probably retire this blog. It only seems fitting to let it sit as the person writing it will invariably be different. I don't know if I will start another one. Part of me thinks I will definitely need to, more than I do now, and part of me thinks it will just seem like something time-consuming and in the way. I guess I will know when I get there. For now, I will keep writing and reading because I can't help but feel there is just something inherently important in it all.

Sylvia Says

As usual, John Green got me thinking about something.

Quotes. I love quotes. But it's kind of a weird thing if you think about it. Why do we love quotes so much? We're just stealing other people's thoughts and ideas and putting them on tshirts, car bumpers, motivational posters, our master's thesis. It's like an acceptable form of plagiarism. We can say exactly what we want to say, but we don't have to own up to it completely because Ghandi said it first. But I love quotes nonetheless, giving me the opportunity to steal from the smart ones and use their brilliance for my own personal gain.

Anyway, John was talking about how the quotes we love, when quoted, lose their original context and enter a whole new one- the context of our lives.

I keep a real, paper journal and in it I often copy down quotes from things I read that I like. Sometimes I go back and read them later and whatnot. But I've never really looked at them as a whole, and wondered why I liked them. So here I go.

From The Bell Jar:

I wondered why I couldn't go the whole way doing what I should anymore. This made me sad and tired. Then I wondered why I couldn't go the whole way doing what I shouldn't, and this made even sadder and more tired.

Well, my first instinct is to simply say, "that's true." It seems like, most of the time, I simply do what I have to, not what I should or even shouldn't. Some people live their lives in defiance, doing whatever it is they think somebody doesn't want them to do. I think that's silly. Some people do absolutely whatever it takes, whatever the rules dictate, to put themselves in good standing. I don't really do that either. That sort of begs the question, what am I doing then? I live somewhere in the middle, doing what I need to do to get by, with no extremes and no excitement. Usually, I'm the highest advocate of moderation, but in this case, it only makes me "sadder and more tired."

There is nothing like puking with somebody to make you into old friends.

I just thought this was funny, and probably true. I don't have the experience to back that up, but I do believe there are just some experiences that two people cannot go through without growing closer. This quote always reminds me of a line in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, something about how fighting the troll in the bathroom cemented Harry, Hermione, and Ron's friendship. While that sounds horribly childish and all, there's definitely some truth to the concept and it's something I rather like the idea of.

It mightn't make make me any happier, but it would be one more little pebble of efficiency among all the other pebbles.

I really liked this originally because it hit upon a concept that I'd always been subconsciously aware of but hadn't articulated. There's a certain feeling of accomplishment, maybe superficial or maybe not, of completing some sort of task that was assigned to you. Busywork, if the term must be used. Perhaps it's just knowing you've done something that somebody else wanted you to; you're that pebble of efficiency, flowing with the current instead of against it.

If neurotic is wanting two mutually exclusive things at one and the same time, then I'm neurotic as hell.

If Sylvia had any wits about her and this statement has any truth to it, then I should be locked up in the funny farm immediately. My life is but a series of wanting mutually exclusive things at once. I'm horrible at making decisions- perhaps I'm just neurotic. Please, give me an excuse. I'd love to know why I agonize over things, sometimes wanting two completely opposite things all at once. I think this might be a universal experience, human nature to want it all, but when you're standing there weighing the options, however big or small, you feel horribly alone. Like a neurotic person in a padded cell.

Well, I could go through the oh so many other quotes I've pilfered, but it would be so long and even more boring than this already is. So I'll leave it at quotes pulled from this one, beloved work, and maybe analyze myself further at a later date.