This Blog is an Essay

I'm going to try this.

Our world is ambiguous, paradoxical, and large. It is difficult to represent the world because of this and because we are part of the world. It's not possible for us to step away from our world, look it over slowly and methodically, nod our heads and say, "OK. Got it."

It's impossible for us to represent anything correctly or completely.

Ironically, we naturally want to organize things and use methods. But we probably can't do so well, and we certainly can't do so perfectly. And it causes vertigo when we think that our world is represented through us incompletely and experienced by us incompletely and it changes incessantly as time flings it along while we try to change with it and that although each of us has personal subjectivities that come to us through unreliable eyes, we are each part of the same general place and represent the same general thing; we look at the world through a rippling reflective pool while others look at the world in us through an old, foggy mirror; and through all this ridiculous lack of wholeness we putter along and try to say one thing or the other is completely certain or that something is simple and another is simply unexplainable; and most of the time we forget all this and forget to think. Vaguely, I want to laugh.

But I won't say it's all pointless, because then there would be nothing to do, and life would be boring or depressing. When we do think and consciously try to represent something, we are doing something admirable. When we put it in writing, we are creating an essay.

"Essay" has received a bad connotation by now, probably due to all the time writing has had to develop. Naturally, some things have been tainted over time. Essays have been assigned and not been completed as true assays, people have been inauthentic and mindless and passionless, and "essay" has become synonymous with torture in the western world.

"Blog" takes away these rough associations and allows us to start over and look at short writing attempts from a different perspective. It is an instant publication with rapid feedback, and it allows us to more easily remain collaborative when we think; it is the new-essay. That said, I could also call it newfangled. I'm scared of the big Internet with its readers that trespass onto my page and read my words and can immediately criticize them negatively. It's hard to think... umm... "successfully" when typing on a screen than it is when writing words with pen and paper. There's an urge to be lacking in discretion. There are so many blogs by so many people. Average blogs lack worth. Who would seriously look at a blog and an ancient manuscript with equal consideration? In short, blogging is overwhelming.

I think that if we can do a bit of writing and a bit of blogging, and represent our thoughts authentically, then we can avoid some of our problems and begin to come closer to a better representation of the world.

But articulation is so hard...

 

Annotation/Me/Composition/Thanks

This is an annotation. It is not an edit. I am aware that art often changes: buildings and paintings fade, performance becomes a mist in memory, history smudges the drawings and creations of mankind. Even text, in its ancient persistence, is erased by decomposition, re-transcription, and fires; art is erased and created by the same species which documents and destroys.

But the Internet seems to stare this rule in the face and oppose it. Information is ensured here; art is maintained; the Internet protects our creations from fading. The Internet leaves a trail which can be hard to completely reverse. In its most basic sense, this trail is a curse. People are embarrassed, hurt and destroyed by this trail because it documents failure and shame.

However, the trail is something we can look to in awe. It is a documentation of documentation, showing the art which inspires art. The Internet represents every user's own growth. It swells, lives, and connects; it is a fun-house mirror in which we can view ourselves, or step to the side and view others. It is the overlord of genres, the nebulous of infinite space where all forms of art can be admired through its haze.

I intend to use this nouveau paper trail to its fullest abilities and I declare henceforth that all entries, once posted under full faculty and operation of my mind and body, and devoid of silly or amateur grammatical mistakes, will remain. I, the learning dilettante, am bound to make such mistakes, but they will be limited and inconsequential. The substance of the post, the essence of art and its progress, will always remain. Humans change and their views and preferences change. People often cringe when viewing the traces of previous instances. But I will not hide the evidence of development, no matter the cringing involved. The me of the future will deal with such changes in prose palinodes. Recantation does not imply desecration. I will not deface art, as did the maddened men in history. That is why this is not an edit. It is an annotation.


As I recreate my birth into the new world of the web, I must speak again about myself. I was born into the first new world to the faces of an unusual amount of family: mother, father, great-grandmother and father, grandmother and father, and brother (all of which were surprisingly satisfied with being present for my birth at some ridiculous hour of the night). This congregation perhaps foreshadows my family's involvement in my life.

In the first month of the springtime of my life, I was athletic and never still. Then I donned glasses, and became academic. Since then, both modes of life I have enthusiastically pursued, but have been more unsuccessful in the pursuit of athleticism due to a lack of good coordination. Otherwise, the pursuits of the mind are fairly well fulfilled.

But I always seek to learn more and discover truth, unsatisfied.


Let me end by saying that "composition" is the best way to broadly term "creation", and is perhaps my favorite term. Besides its emphasis on the parts involved in the making of things, it connotes musical images. I think maybe I can understand the old and beautiful things, like a piece of classical music or an ancient Anglo-Saxon text. I feel that, in taking a composition class, I can investigate the beginnings of creation, the particles of art, and the transmutation of ideas and forms.


Thank you to whoever reads this for suffering through the incomplete and inadequate description of myself, who must remain anonymous, yet be compelling. Thank you to the creators who and creations which have recently affected and influenced me (here, here, here, here, here, and here).

In Mike Milosh's words, "...time...time is...time is tight".

O, Brave New World

Hello Web World,
In the spirit of remaining somewhat anonymous, I must reveal myself without divulging such compromising secrets as my attributed geography, name, educational status, vocational involvement, physical form and certain other oddities or identifications. As such, I am faced with problems of self-description and definition; I am forced to show you some general and limited revelation about myself, without wishing to do so, and I am expected to make it entertaining and sort of brief. I'm probably not off to a good start.
World! Behold!
In my youth, life was not so exciting. I collected turtle figurines for some time, played with cats, read Magic Tree House, etc. It still isn't so exciting: the town is safe, the drama is scarce, and I involve myself largely in academia or sport. I feel secluded, detached from the main world, a world which I can glimpse through my world or see in the foggy mirror of the Internet. The world I experience is subjective and distorted; it is not so real as the world through all perspectives, or the right perspective. I struggle to see what is truth, utilizing a limited form and an impaired mind.
Lest I be berated for being pedantic or off-thesis, let me again point to myself and stop talking about purity of perspective. Writing is hard (especially writing regarding myself), but words are fun.
I went to Disneyland and dressed up as Mickey Mouse, trick-or-treating in the hotel there. This is one of my most vivid memories from youth; I don't remember much. Look here and here and you may know me better, you may know the modern me.
I'm ending this, even if it's not representative or complete.
-The Slightly Anonymous Me