Taking a break and returning (what a change in perspective)

Being away from the blog for awhile, has maybe even been a good thing (in the end), since it
also did give me a much-needed perspective and distance.
Now that I return, for (hopefylly) more regular posting and engagements, I find that things also feels quite a bit different. I look at things differently.
All the things that seemed like impossible challenges, now maybe doesn’t quite seem as heavy or menacing anymore.

And all the things that seemed so very small, that I somehow overlooked, and forgot how to value, or
even knew what to do with, now seems at least a little big bigger, and possibly also of a lot
more value and meaning.

So… what do I want with this blogging thing (anyway)?

Maybe my problem is that I expect blogging to be something more—or something ELSE–than what it actually IS. I expect blogging to be a magic bullet for connecting and engaging with other people. I expect blogging to be something that might very well be perfectly ALIEN to its very nature and media. I expect any message and stream, and any voice and any meaning, to go into that hole. That tinyest pinprick hole, that eye of the needle, that fleeting electronic space, weaved out of technological shapes, and yet also with breathing and bleeding, heart-and-soul, LIVING PEOPLE, that will forever stand at the gate, looking through, into just one tinyest part, of the whole. Only with whispers and guesses, and fleeting moments of maybe’s, ever-surely getting through.

Blogging sure isn’t a chat. (Tough Maybe we could turn it into a chat?)

Blogging isn’t a phone call either (neither to god, nor to man. Or… maybe it is, or could be?)

So what is (the nature of) blogging? Posting and linking, and comments.

Blogging is a text. Blogging is a private-public journal. Scribbled and foot-noted, at the very end, and by the margins, of the living people who are reading that text.

The text really DOES have value to me. I love all kinds of texts. If you read, and write texts, you know of their value.

And yet, adn yet, the people also have so much of a value. And the people can often get pushed away, and overshadowed, by the text.

What is needed then is human relations, interactions and connections. Conversations and engegemantes. Dialogues and trialogues and multi-logues.

Speech—and human responses—in addition to the text(s).

So, we might need both a phonecall, as well as a notebook and a pen. A text that is spoken—in spirit—and speech that is written, in web and in life.

In my other post (the one about selfsabotage), I blamed myself, for why all this blogging in some ways had failed, or at least not led to anywhere close to what I’d hoped and prayed. I blamed my own perfectionism and my own imperfections, and my own everything else, and thus merely confirming how I still think that it all is my own fault. I’M the one who is so unbelievably imperfect. I’m the one who can never get anything right. So I blamed everything on myself and all of my own, as I always does, yet again and again.

And so… maybe I’m right.

Or maybe it is all of our faults. The conspiration of human imperfections and flaws. Imperfections colliding and clashing. People not seeing eye to eye, and not really nearing each other. People (on the web) not truly understaning that there’s another flesh-and-heartbeats human being, at the other end. People, so seldom, and so late, ever barely understanding each other. Even just a tiny part of their and our lives.

Maybe people aren’t always all too compatible. Good, and well-intentioned, and yet… also highly different. Like they’re (we’re) from another time and space, or even from another unspeakable world.

Maybe we all have to make the serious effort. To understand, and to connect. To engage and to embrace. Each other. And also all the many others. The living and breathing. The others. The human being(s) at the other end (of the line, or the text, or the web).

I don’t yet know… what it is, or what is there.

But somehow we all have to make the attempt. At least if we want it to be/come more than a conversation… of and with… just (barely) one’s own little self.

Also everyone—or at least some little ones—or maybe just a one.

Or maybe many many many more.

But at least it would be really rather good if we all attempted to try.

Self-sabotage, and other existential (t)errors

So, I started this blog with the intention, or rather the experimental sensation, as a kind of test of where things could lead. Something to try. Perchance, a dream, or even something more than a dream. A pathway… ahead. Or the most broken and unstable stepping stone (by my feet). But it was never meant to be anything definite or permanent. At least not at first. This whole blog was just meant as a trial, or a test; something temporary, until hopefully in case something better came along.

So… why didn’t I see what I had actually (had and have got) going RIGHT HERE? However imperfect and work in-progress. It was still something that was getting somewhere, no matter how slow and gradual the journey, or that step, might seem and appear in the process.

Was it the perfectionst in me that started to rebel? My very own imperfect so messy blog? Things that are not up to my impossible standards? At least parly, I think so.

There was also the question—the SENSE—that I had got off on a wrong foot. Sooo and sooo many things that didn’t turn out the way I planned or hoped. So many piles of smaller mistakes, or at least what I considered mistakes (at the time).

But maybe, most of all, was the failure to connect with other people. Which might stem out of a low sense of worth (“I’m just not good enough for other people…”), as well as being very defensive/protective and insecure about things in some ways.

So I didn’t open up enough. I didn’t share and connect with other people on a more personal (or even a more… HUMAN) level. In the midst, and in the in-between, of all of us who are struggling&living right here.

So why did I stop blogging when I’d already gotten close to 100 followers in just 3 or 4 weeks? (and at least some exchanges with others.)

I just couldn’t take the pressure. At least that was part of the reason. All this attention—->all these eyes and senses… moving&creeping closer, and steering their minds towards old little *ME*.

So I abandoned ship. The only thing I seem to know well how to do (when things get out of hand, or when I just don’t know anymore just what to do). The thing I always seem to do: Sabotage so much for myself. Putting these (imaginary) brickwalls and obstacles, terrors and chains, in front of myself. Sabotaging…. my own LIFE. My own self. (And yet again. And again. And again. Why… is that so???)

So here I am. Considering all the options and choices of the future. If I should try to pick it all back up, all the little pieces. The shards and the things, I discard. Cause they’re… “just not enought perfect enough.” Cause maybe *I* am not perfect enough (or at least that’s what I think).

I thought that maybe I would start another blog sometime in the future (and this time I’ll get it right! This time… only this time… I’ll get it all right. From the start.) I thought that maybe I will just quit all of this blogging business. Maybe I will find something else. Maybe I should just go ahead abondon ship. BUT… What is there else but the  waters around me? Don’t I need a raft… or some craft or foundation… or an island to stand up stady, or even a ship to sail about on the seas and the waters?

If I write something good, or at least somehing that get other peples attention, I become scared from all the attention. If I write something less good, or at least something that doesn’t get other people’s attention, I become afraid that I’ve ruined the blog, or that no other people will care about me or it anymore.

I become scared out of being alone. I become scared when gaining other peoples attention. A catch 22. A bouble bind horror, of psychological dread. The horrific paradox of old: you’re damned if you do, ,and you’re damned if you don’t. So why don’t I just DO? I’ll get damned—or at least I THINK I’ll get damned—no matter what I do.

Well, that’s the million-dollar question. Just what should I choose? And what would I lose, or even maybe gain? (If I don’t remaind here so stuck, in the same gloomy old place.)

So. I will think about re/turning and/or maybe keeping on blogging. I will consider almost everything and everything else.

And then, I’ll hopefully make some kind of choice. Maybe a wise one, or a increadibly stupid one, but at least I’ll try to do and get SOMETHING—even ANYTHING—done. With everything that I got, and with what I want.

What say you? What say I? This is a chance. This is a moment of life. maybe all of my life. Or at least some kind of path… that may lead somewhere else. (or.. yet again: grow ever-deeper into a forest or a garden, so ever-more blossomed, and so ever-more large. Like a moment of time, or even one whole life.)

 

Should I stop blogging

I started blogging with for two purposes. To get my writing out there. And to connect with other people (both of similar interests (and maybe also others)). But both things kinda feel like a failure now.

So I ask myself the quetions if I should stop blogging?

I feel like the connection with people didn’t work. I’ve commented. (though finding a blog post where you’ve actually anything to say means that you might have to read many others first so it can be really time consuming.  I read dozens of posts, gave likes to a handful, and commented on maybe two. That one day in my blogging career.)

So many comments doesn’t get a response. And the few that do are often “thank you for responding” and similar things that a (ro)bot could have said. I think “what exactly was it that you liked?” Pleasantries and appearance have overtaken actual real interaction. But yes there are still a some interactions that feels real. Some great people who … But too much of iy comes off as talking to the (proverbial) hand.

So I’m not sure exactly where this interaction or conversation is to take place. On my blog, or on others? I’ve gotten a few comments on my blog: “I like this!”, “Love this”, “Amazing”. It’s really hard to get/have much of a conversation from that.

I think there’s also a conflict between personal interaction on one hand, and technical/informational and “professional” interaction on the other. Technical posts, informational posts, etc, are often less personal. Technical conversations doesn’t really do much to make me feel connected with other people.

Most blog conversations are too much like this: A: says something. B: says something. BOOM. Conversation over.

In real life this woould be considered extremely antissocial. My whole blogging experience have felt so much like talking in an echo chamber. Occasionally I might hear a faint voice in the distance. But it turns out it was only an automated response.

I’ve posted 1 blog post on average per day for 24 days. Yet visitors have dropped off to almost nothing.

They say it takes 30 days to create a habit or to do something long-term. So I guess in 1 week I’ll know for sure.

 

The dunbar number

Dunbar’s number

Six degrees or —endless separation—of—
[please insert your favorite person here]
People have been counting on people.
Some of those thinkers (and labcoats)
may have discovered a thing or four.
That…The optimal number of friends
and people in a personal space,
is between 150-250 heads (and/or faces).
That’s how many people you could name,
and even know —deep in your heart of hearts—
that you might actually know them
(even if only one tiny bit).
And when the crowds keeps on growing
over this number of Dunbar,
a constant fog of the brain
or the heart might start to set in,
with endless pollution and confusion:
—moments and lifetimes stolen away
from our closest of friends.

Thought it might seem…to be…
like some people will only need one.
A BFF (gadget) constantly glued to their face.
(Just as they’re getting in line).
A shiny plastic device
that has made it so ordered and even…
much above and beyond
this lonely mysterious number
that is we and ourselves.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunbar%27s_number

Oh, and I meant to link to this but I forgot. It goes along so well with what I had written.

http://withnoonebutme.com/2014/05/23/old-friends/

Mona Lisa on facebook or the 2-minute chapel

Mona Lisa on facebook or the 2-minute chapel

 

If Michelangelo had all this technology,
then would he ever have completed
that heavenly ceiling?
Or just settled for less?
Drawing two-minute pictures
on youtube,
shouting “yolo” and “yo, bro”,
to an army of 4-chan nerds..
I’m sure that a scribble on instagram
would’ve been appreciated,
by some kawaii k-pop girl,
when it looked like hello kitty,
and had a mouth
like that of a bird.