When Mac1 called this morning for a wee chat, it welled up inside... after nearly five months of living out of a suitcase in places not my own, with the end tantalisingly dangling before me, I am hanging on with my mental fingernails. My spiritual regime has suffered. It is there, but at absolute bare essentials. I long for the setting up of a full and improved routine. I long to be able to timetable my day between that, the study and research pursuits, the artistic and the simple fun.
Blogging fits into the last two. Occasionally it shows a reflection from the second. Eventually I hope it will also shine forth with the first. More on that in due and appropriate time.
There was pause for thought today, though, when I read blogpal Jennifer's post. Within it, she directed us to this article. Worth the reading.
Allow me to dip my oar in this particular pond.
Throughout the ages, since ever Man discovered the ability to represent himself outside his immediate thoughts, first as pictograms, then as alphabets, he has done so. It has been an extremely important part of building society. Leaving one's mark.
The urge hasn't ceased. If anything, the arrival of the electronic age has permitted an increase of such behaviour. Just about anybody and everybody can put their "mark on the wall". There are plenty who would suggest this is not a great benefit, given some of the offerings. But you take from it what you want and you leave the rest alone. All tastes and predelictions are served. Now and 10000 years ago. Man is man, for a' that...
Similarly, the gift of expression gives rise to the privilege of critique, whether positive or otherwise. Those who chose to 'express' as a direct result of another's offerings carry a heavy tool.
Those who chose to give expression must accept that once it is 'out there' it no longer belongs to them. Oh yes there is I.P. and other such measures. Just like any author in earlier times though whose books we can physically handle from the shelves of our own or the public library, we become part of that great library in the cloud. Is this to be valued as being of less worth? Whatever we offer is there for posterity. Folk can take it or leave it.
What happens when I am gone? I don't particularly care. Writing is firstly a method of sorting out my thoughts, of stabilising and crystalising them. I have been fortunate that a few folk have tagged along and felt I make some kind of difference to their day.
If sometime in the dim and distant future an ethaerchaeologist finds some great and meaningful socially historical significance in what they find here it will demonstrate exactly as such researches do today - words are just words and they'll almost certainly get it wrong as to who I actually am. Will this matter? Not a jot.
Old Will knew a thing or two when he said we were but actors on the stage.
I recently came upon some scribblings of my mother. She passed less than three years ago. Seeing these words I could do nothing but smile. It was as if I could hear her voice, it was such an absolute snapshot of who she was.
Mac2 and Mac3 also read it and each of them reacted and took something different from it. Just as they would if she had been standing before them.
To anyone else it would have meant nothing.
For those who are concerned about leaving a shadow, it is possible to delete the presence... but then why put it up in the first place?
Blogging fits into the last two. Occasionally it shows a reflection from the second. Eventually I hope it will also shine forth with the first. More on that in due and appropriate time.
There was pause for thought today, though, when I read blogpal Jennifer's post. Within it, she directed us to this article. Worth the reading.
Allow me to dip my oar in this particular pond.
Throughout the ages, since ever Man discovered the ability to represent himself outside his immediate thoughts, first as pictograms, then as alphabets, he has done so. It has been an extremely important part of building society. Leaving one's mark.
The urge hasn't ceased. If anything, the arrival of the electronic age has permitted an increase of such behaviour. Just about anybody and everybody can put their "mark on the wall". There are plenty who would suggest this is not a great benefit, given some of the offerings. But you take from it what you want and you leave the rest alone. All tastes and predelictions are served. Now and 10000 years ago. Man is man, for a' that...
Similarly, the gift of expression gives rise to the privilege of critique, whether positive or otherwise. Those who chose to 'express' as a direct result of another's offerings carry a heavy tool.
Those who chose to give expression must accept that once it is 'out there' it no longer belongs to them. Oh yes there is I.P. and other such measures. Just like any author in earlier times though whose books we can physically handle from the shelves of our own or the public library, we become part of that great library in the cloud. Is this to be valued as being of less worth? Whatever we offer is there for posterity. Folk can take it or leave it.
What happens when I am gone? I don't particularly care. Writing is firstly a method of sorting out my thoughts, of stabilising and crystalising them. I have been fortunate that a few folk have tagged along and felt I make some kind of difference to their day.
If sometime in the dim and distant future an ethaerchaeologist finds some great and meaningful socially historical significance in what they find here it will demonstrate exactly as such researches do today - words are just words and they'll almost certainly get it wrong as to who I actually am. Will this matter? Not a jot.
Old Will knew a thing or two when he said we were but actors on the stage.
I recently came upon some scribblings of my mother. She passed less than three years ago. Seeing these words I could do nothing but smile. It was as if I could hear her voice, it was such an absolute snapshot of who she was.
Mac2 and Mac3 also read it and each of them reacted and took something different from it. Just as they would if she had been standing before them.
To anyone else it would have meant nothing.
For those who are concerned about leaving a shadow, it is possible to delete the presence... but then why put it up in the first place?
I'm not sure I have ever said anything worth remembering.
ReplyDeleteMerle..........
Don't listen to Merle. She said her front garden was overgrown and needed clearing, and she did.
ReplyDeleteThe amount "out there" is boggling, and probably provides as good a read to the current generation as an afternoon sitting in the stacks did for us. The mouse can't be as satisfying as the feel and sound of pages, but what the heck. Maybe their children will surf from page to page by thought waves, and their parents lament the loss of the mouse.
Hari OM
ReplyDeleteMerle - the point is it WILL be worth something to somebody. In Jenn's post, the concern was also about how will folk who 'know' you, with whom you are connected react and is it worth allowing others an access which eradicate your presence. Personally I think that would be a shame...
Joanne - I agree!
I rather like the thought that my ramblings may be read and even pondered by future generations. Much more likely to happen electronically than that any paper records of me will survive.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the ShouOUt.
ReplyDeleteI began the piece awhile ago. Then, thought it timely, with hubby being ill.
Ironically, the kids are trying to figure out their dad's passwords, and it isn't going too well.
His wife hasn't been able to use the phone, let alone the computer, lately, with her dementia.
I am feeling sadly neglected, as they struggle to care for her. I'm enjoying my 4 a.m. pity party!
Many thanks for your faithful visits to my blog.