I don't know if I will blog again or if I really have a purpose in using this website. More than anything else, there are a few blogs that I enjoy following and would like to link to this account.
Blogging to people who do not know me is bizarrely schizophrenic because I will probably create a persona that does not reflect the image people have of me in the real world. This is because, essentially, a person is reborn the first time he or she blogs. People read the blogger's publication, which is an extension of his or her newly projected identity, and then judge the blogger by this and subsequent posts. The blogger has no discernible real-world traits - physical, emotional, intellectual - except those that can be gleaned from these postings. I imagine this is liberating to those who blog because they can create idealized representations of themselves and control these representations with deliberate and precisely worded expressions that craft an artificially manicured image. To hell with any and all of the defects that often control how we behave and and are perceived in the real world.
More than anything, now that I am thinking about this, I am fascinated by the faux pas committed by public figures on blogs and twitter accounts. Maybe it is because public figures who blog are not as liberated by this artificial construct as I am - the anonymous man. They must maintain their identity, and even embrace the aspects of it which are normally criticized by those who are paid to critique. When Sarah Palin or Scottie Pippen decides to tweet something that is ridiculous or unfounded, maybe they do so because it is to be expected. After all, if Sarah Palin sounded more like Hilary Clinton and Scottie Pippen sounded more like Ray Allen, people would charge them with being frauds. Sarah Palin, unlike me, must continue to sound ignorant because ignorance has come to define her. She does not have the liberty to improve upon her image or she will cease to be Sarah Palin. Christianity, not blogger.com, still offers her the best opportunity to be reborn (pretty crappy options).
I am probably not doing a great job of explaining my views on blogging but, then again, that's why I have this forum on which to write badly - I am a blogger now and this is what bloggers do. If I use this site for anything, maybe I will use it to explore the idea of projecting new, different and, obviously, false identities on a daily basis. One day I will be a farmer, the next a lawyer, the next an eccentric entrepreneur and so on. That way I am neither attempting to recreate the identity I have in the real-world, nor attempting to start anew and project an idealized version of myself that in no way captures the flaws, defects and charms that I probably possess in the eyes of the people who know me. This will be a totally schizophrenic experiment.
Or, more likely, I'll never post again.
No comments:
Post a Comment