Hmm….you wouldn’t know it, but I
write the blog all day long with varied and deep and sprawling observations,
reflections, brainstorms, commentaries, speeches Dusty Baker needs to give his
hapless team, solutions for the English Education quandaries, and more, more,
more. But none of it ever seems to make its way into this blog. It’s time for
an entry on why, though I can’t quite seem to nail it, and so I delay. But here’s
a partial list:
- Publication Anxieties: There are many kinds of publication
anxieties, but I’ll focus on the fear associated with the "public representation
of one’s writing." I know blogging is supposed to be free and casual,
"your mind on the Web," your un-spell-checked, un-filtered, un-labored-over
phenomenological stream and such, but who can be so un-fettered, un-revised,
un-artificial as all that? - Loneliness/Privacy: These are opposite pulls. Blogging
can be so lonely…. There you are, putting your Wisdom o’ Life out there,
and there it goes, unread, ignored. On the other hand, if the blogging is
going well, it can get pretty close to the core, so KEEP OUT! - Trajectory of An Idea: One thing leads to another, till
it circles back into the Totality of Everything. I start planning these little
blogs, each of which connects to all these other thoughts, each of which summons
a plan for new entries. There’s always a master plan lurking. Ah, master plans:
the motive of all possibilities and nothingness. Coleridge was right: Extremes
do meet. - Violating Communication Privilege: This problem originated
as the simple ethical problem of quoting a friend’s email. It’s really wrong
to take a friend’s or colleague’s or student’s message and post it on a Web
site without permission, but the delay of the process, and/or the possibility
of denial takes all the fun and spontaneity out the whole blog experience.
Now the problem has expanded into another area. For lately, I’ve felt the
urge to post email that I’VE composed and sent to friends, students, colleagues.
Even though I am the "owner" and author of the text, I feel it’s
a violation to take a message crafted and intended for an individual and re-use
it for a larger audience. (But so much of our language is re-usable!) So I
start to wonder: To what extent was the original message itself "dictated"
by the needs of this alterior/ulterior? rhetorical situation? Just when did
the thinking that this message might be "re-usable" start creeping
in? As rhetorical motives flit about during communication, just how do we
go about sorting through purposes, audiences, and situations? So typically,
I throw up my hands; I just sit on it, and ignore the whole thing, sigh… - Get a Life: This journaling, while the best of all things
(to a teacher of writing…process, process, process…archive, archive, archive,
which leads to more process, process, process) threatens to take over….
I mean, who has the time? - Who the hell cares? I mean, people around me–at home,
at work, in the community, everywhere–are kind and caring and generous–and
would read anything I put before them in a heartbeat, but should they really
be subjected to "inhabit my sprawl"? I mean, we all enjoy our OWN
sprawl, and it is, to quote Smeagol, "our precious"…but take that
sprawl out of context, and talk about BORING! Hmm…the sprawl as ring…now
there’s an idea! Keep posted…. - Perpetual Unfinishedness: Living la vida blog, womb-bred
blogging–authenticity in blogging–requires comfort with–no, an inhabitation
of–the attitude of perpetual unfinishedness. Got an idea? Feel a need to
understand it? to know it? to work with it? to move on with it? Go write a
final draft. Get thee to a five-paragraph essay! Hence from the blog and blogging
company! In fragments and false starts and partial finishes and ellipsis marks
and the perpetual endlessness of things we trust, kinda…