An Old Diary Post On Blogs 2/4/2007

"Ah, je ris de me voir si belle dans ce
miroir!" -- Un commentaire qui marche bien à illuminer n'importe quelle forme d'écriture (supposément) privée. Une connaisance profonde, cadeau de la Belle Bianca Castafiore.

dear diary,

i had forgotten how seductive the blogosphere can be. this morning, after checking out the *five* blogs maintained by my non-opinionated eldest brother, i decided to click on the "next blog" option in the upper left of my screen.

what a world! suddenly, i am inside someone else's existence -- they are telling me things -- and some of the things are really... important, private, surprising, and almost always, very endearing. i must have visited 15-20 different blogs this afternoon, and no matter the intent of the blogger (to be perceived as super-smart, witty, urbane, the flamekeeper of western civilization, party animal par excellence, whatever), what s/he cannot keep *out* of their writing is whatever they love the most.

invariably, it is children, family, friends, and pets. on a different rung entirely are hung our passions: a profession, a calling, political beliefs, issues. even then, the blogger only succeeds when s/he makes the abstract real by the insertion of children, family, friends, and pets. i suppose that is what the blog is? the intersection of our personal loves with our passions?

it is a world of opinion and discourse -- so linked, connected, and hyperlinked, even, that if you shut your eyes, and quiet your hands, you can hear the shrieking wires and reel from the particulate scatter of radio waves breaking against the planes of your skin.

i love it, but it scares me.

maybe it is a healthy thing for others -- for me, i don't think so. and it probably is fine to get hooked on the blog of a "famous person," people who really are kind of professionals -- the ubiquitous talking heads/pundits in politics and the arts, even in the sciences.

but i keep stumbling on ordinary people -- almost all of whom are doing incredibly *remarkable* things with their lives, apparently without much off-putting obnoxious self-awareness. and as i stumble into their lives, i start to... care.

anyway... it got me through today, and if i start jonesing for a fix of updated information about so-and-so's child with the measles, or whosits' job interview at the mall, or what happened overnight in podunk, usa -- i chose several to put on my steadily lengthening list of favorites.

this is symptomatic of how sucky and insular my life has become, isn't it? (no... i wasn't talking to *you*! i was talking to my CATS! oh dear god.)

all my love, dear diary,
retired educator
2/4/2007