A number of people have told me over the last 3 years that I can be a fairly good blogger/writer/or whatever you want to call it. In reading over my past writings I and my too-often-lack-of-humility tend to agree. Also what I've found is that the words spring to me but only if there is some kind of emotional charge going on in my life that releases itself into the writing itself. In other words, only when I've got something to say that is emotionally important to me am I able to say it in such a way that it might be somewhat interesting to others as well.
Well.. one can't get too much more emotional than when the writing corresponds to either love or death, both of which applied before, during and after Patti's disappearance from my own and other's lives.
Since that time a lot of my life has been just a bunch of "blah, blah, barking.. have you any fleas?" in practically all arenas of my personal life, be it my once-in-a-blue-moon writing/photo taking or my life in general.
So why should my telling of any it be any different than ever more pointless and incessant barking as we humans seem compelled to do?
I am not all that good at taking some next-to-nothing "something" and making it appear as a big and important "Something!" (with a capital S and exclamation mark).
Some people can do that. They often get paid for that talent. I'm obviously not one of them. Read me at your own peril (injury or death by falling asleep as your face hits your keyboard).
Not long ago a good and lifelong friend accused me of being "too wordy" in my writings. That certainly gave me pause-for-thought and I've thought about it a lot.
My conclusions were boiled down to an either/or analysis of why one would think that. Or perhaps a mix of both:
1) Because what I write really is as boring as watching paint dry on a Friday afternoon and the reader can barely wait to get to the end of the passage but feels for their own reasons they must wade on through since the only ones reading this are in fact people I know and who know me.
or 2) the reader is totally addicted to the essential internet need (skill) to skim over the tops all things readable, hoping to find some kind of "nugget of golden interest", absorb it for a second or two and then to move on, getting to the end of the piece as quickly as possible.. then, moving on to the next thing to skim and search for something that actually blips up one's interest, the next "hit".
The internet is a good and addictive invention but like all addictions it too has a dark side. (and I don't mean porn.. I do mean boredom from mediocrity overload, sorta like most of us with a dollop of intelligence have come to feel about TV.)
Granted.. my writing is nothing to.. uh.. write home about.
OK. Skimming. We all do that.. skim the reading material on our screens as fast as we can read to find something..anything of interest whether from friend, stranger or professional writer.
Often, deep down we feel we have even better things we could be wasting our time on, if that makes any sense.
No doubt some are you are doing this right now and feeling the accuracy of the mild accusation. Too wordy. get on with it. Give me something that will at least make me chuckle for 1 second. Is that too much to ask?
Blog hopping and channel hopping are the twisted twin sisters of the little screen. Whattaya gonna do to get yer fix. ?
108 channels of shit.
Sometimes the struggle on our computers to find ever greater interest can feel endless and hopeless and after a while we put it to sleep and do something else with our time.
But like all addicts.. we'll be back with renewed hope, check our email how many times a day?.. looking to see if there is another Christmas present under the tree, "does anybody love you today?", often repeating the same cycle again and again. I know I do.
Skimming is a coping skill with something that is powerfully addictive.
What can I say?.... Life Itself can be "too wordy"... too boring... except on those rarefied occasions when it's not.
Blessed are those who can whisper to themselves "god damn I love doing this!".. whatever for them "this" may be. I am envious of those who actually love what they are engaged in. Nearly 16 months and I'm still coming off of Patti Trippin' her Light Fantastic.
Like standing under the space shuttle as it blasts off into the glorious heavens.
Overcooked bacon.
If I were in the Grace of Love.. or the Grace of Imminent Death with sensibility still with me, or just helping someone close to me die as I (as we) have done.. fighting the good fight whatever it might be, no doubt I could hold your interest and leave you hungry for more. That's what good writing is all about.
I can't do that.
There needs to be either great Fire or Great "something" in my heart before it can wake me up enough to write about it. Then, with only words to transfer the emotion to the reader, to tug on the reader like trying to move a stubborn mule out of their ordinary sitting space and on into the shared extra-ordinary place of "whoa!" (meaning the opposite of course).
It's called Art (regardless of the medium) and I tell you, Art aint easy. Art requires power and will never arise from ho-hum.
Still, there exists those special and subtle states of Beingness...(those "spaces" that come upon us, that are us for a moment) definitely rare and different than the other greater part of our lives. Epiphanies that can occur out of the blue. "Whoa" stuff.
Pointless and incessant barking at next to nothing is what most of us do in the blogosphere. I would say in life as well. We skim along not really wishing to get to the end of life as soon as possible.. but still so often feeling "is this all there is?".
Could be Alfie... could be.
I have decided to resume my online journal writing, right here. Beginning again, now.
And yeah, it's going to be wordy and boring and pointless "barking at the moon", signifying not much of anything. At the very least it's pure and simple record keeping that 20 years from now when I can barely see and perhaps have to wear diapers, I can do an occasional life-in-review, remembering things otherwise forgotten.
With a little luck there might even be something worthwhile to take along for the both of us, reader and writer alike. The mind has unexplored depths that with luck and the right conditions can be opened up to The Mystery. Can reveal and open that little "trap door" in our brains where one can shower in the healing Light of Love and of Wonder if only for a moment.. then float gladly for a time on the residue.
Perhaps it's those most rare moments that make all the rest of this too-wordy flat-lining worthwhile.
If dogs can do it, bark and even wag their tails at the same time, then so can I.
Stay tuned.
(ah, if only we could!)
