Slow News Day
It’s been a slow news day.
And I by that, I mean I have little to blog about. Sometimes I stare at this blog and feel I am at an impasse. I don’t want this to be one of those every-detail-of-my-life blogs. There are few writers who can do that well.
The amazing thing about the world wide web is that everyone can have a voice, and someone will listen. Intimate communities of people spread around the world exist … even though there is a big difference between the “you” that exists on your blog and the “you” that has to deal with people face-to-face. There has been this nagging concern that has followed the development of the web that people were becoming less personal. We’re closing ourselves off to the outside world. I think that while we may be closing ourselves off, we are also opening ourselves up to a world that never existed before.
How you know people has changed dramatically, but so has who you can know. A part of ourselves can go global, when we used to be limited to what now seems like a very narrow circle of physical interactions. There are people who used to spend years alone in a crowd, unable to find kindred spirits. Now the web has given us unlimited networks of kindred spirits. Alone, in our rooms, we find strength in community.
But we are still alone in our rooms. The web will never replace genuine, physical closeness. There is something to having a shoulder nearby that is not your own. There is always risk involved in trusting someone, but perhaps it is more dangerous to trust someone who can delete you. You can escape someone’s presence in your life with the mere click of a mouse.
I have always imagined this site being some sort of community. It is a blog right now because that seems to fit the bill until more people get involved. It is a blog right now because I am still trying to figure what that community will look like. I wish — I pray — for a day that this becomes something more than thoughts and arguments. So many of these online communities are not forums that breed interaction, but places for ranting, smoke, and grievances. I want this to be a spring board to real life interaction, even if the participants never physically meet. If they take interactions here and let it breed interactions in the physical world, then this site will be serving its purpose.
I am not sure I know what this all means, or even if I know what I am talking about. All I know is that if it takes ten years of rambling 3.5 times a week to 3.5 people to make a 3.5% improvement to the world just outside our doors, then that’s what it takes.
So on slow news days like this, I guess what I need to do is just keep hashing this stuff out. I need to keep thinking about the type of artist community I have always imagined, even if my imagination can at times be a bit fanciful and a bit vague.
February 4th, 2009 at 11:50 am
Very true. As far as discussion goes, I’m sick of the Internet being nothing but anonymous insults, and talk about frivolous things like what Britney Spears has been up to, and Sanjaya’s hair! Sounds like I’m really going to like your blog.