Today's Word: Dough
My heart was still quaking from pushing myself on the elliptical trainer. 30 minutes and 450 calories later, I nearly lost consciousness. I wanted this excess gone from my body. I want to be "men's magazine" pure.
And, By the Way, You're Always Wrong
I've been dipping my toe back in the blog bog this past week, sampling the state of American political opinion online. It's been a few weeks since I swore off heavy-duty poliblogs, opting for news sites for information. Weeks ago, I reached a critical mass where I couldn't take any more snark and dismay mixed in with half-borne facts and information. Breaking away gave me time to clean my head and focus on my writing. It was difficult to break the habit I had gotten into. I'd refresh my favorite blogs every few minutes to see what new comments were added. Did someone respond to me? Did people like what I said? Is there a comment I can make to that new comment? It was obsessive and growing into compulsion, seeking favor and recognition from a crowd of like-minded strangers. Unconsciously, I grew to follow a certain dogma, if only to have my username acknowledged. With that, I'd break into the in-group of the blog. I'd be a regular, sought after for opinion. I'd be a warrior of the new world. Cherished.
I'd be someone. And boy did it hurt when you were ignored. Step out of line and you're a troll. You get barbecued with flames, but people remember you. Being ignored? You don't exist. Stuff like that haunts you when you go offline, and your personas get scrambled. If you aren't seen in the virtual world, do you exist in the real one? If your ideas are who you are on the Web, and they get passed-over, what does that say about you?
Lurking around a few message boards and blogs, I got reacquainted with all those feelings again. My impulses have been getting the better of me this week, and I've been posting on said B&Bs. Within minutes, I'm scrolling back, refreshing, seeing for any updates on the subjects or the comments. I'm looking to be made real by a response.
And all I got from this falling off the wagon was the lesson that Everyone You Stand For Is Wrong.
You like Apple? You drank the kool-aid.
How can you be a fan of Nintendo? That's "teh kiddie" console, lamer. Ha! I pwned u!!!
Don't think my conspiracy theory makes sense? You're part of the sheeple.
I'll spare you the comments after saying Kerry could have done better in the campaign.
It's an amazing irony that the greatest communications tool devised by man isn't a device for talking with people. And while everyone has a voice on the Web, there's a precious shortage of ears. Everyone as of late gets this iron shield hoisted up to their chins as they march onto the Web. There's this revolving xenophobia in the ether, where you have to like one or the other, but not both. You have to decide which is cooler, which is better. And you have to do it loudly, with as much sarcasm and venom as you can muster to your text-laden enemies who come to convert and ridicule at once. Eventually, you get boxed in from opponents on your flank and supporters to your rear. You can't be wrong, ever. You are reduced to a zealot, endlessly straining to have your side emerge on top. For an analog version, go to Hyde Park in London and scope out the vehemently opinionated at Speaker's Corner. Or take in (if you dare) the cable news screaming matches that are as much about debating as Twinkies are a part of a garden salad.
The Web is a wonderful way to speak your piece without censors, but remember that three-year-olds do this all the time in supermarkets and in long lines to anything. I'm all for opinions, but the formation of a reasoned soul comes about through contemplation, through listening and asking questions. I don't see reason out here past my digital back yard. I see a lot of desperate souls in a vast, indifferent world needing to be heard, and saying anything to get noticed. There's a certain sadness here, as if the global village is a bunch of lonely people in need of a friendly ear, passion fused with a good laugh, and not taking themselves so seriously.
P.S.
All that said, I'm quite excited about the upcoming Star Wars film. Trailer aired in America last night and I felt like I was age five again, seeing the first Star Wars film in 1977 and having a Fisher-Price My First Acid Trip.
And I saw the trailer for the new Legend of Zelda game coming from Nintendo. Sorry, my dear wife, but I'm getting a mistress. ;)
11 comments:
hi john,
i do not know about your forays into the rest of the blogging world but i can be rest assured that you will always have the verve to speak out your mind, i know, and i am proud of you :)
the way you resolve to get as far away from these political blogs as possible is just about the same as my attmept to stay off the carbs. the more i think about it, the more i gravitate to it it seems , ha ha ha!
of course wherever you go where people are talking, you'd always unknowingly stumble into little cliques that may ask you to hop in, get sucked in even deeper, and before you know turns into a whirlwind of something fierce. once i got so into this poetry site where writers critique each other and things were well at first then started getting too personal and i found myself unwittingly involved. i got no stomach for such things because it made me upset and paranoid, which made me stay away from the internet for a long time, even making me leave behind some poetry i made that i did't have copies of.
i found out later on that there is such a thing as internet psychosis, it's not uncommon, and things tend to seem like what they really aren't in real life. nothing that a push on the Turn Off Computer can't handle, for sure :)
In the end, you can't work with zealots. People have to detox themselves from dogma, and I'm shocked that a poetry site would be so toxic with attitude. Last place I'd expect.
I think the Internet Psychosis is due to the perception you are standing at the edge of a vast field when you get onto the Web, and you feel so insignificant you get terrified of not existing. I suppose it's a digital version of being overwhelmed when visiting a foreign metropolis.
once you get into the groove of things in the web, you somehow perceive you are in center stage where all the spotlights are trained on you. that is what happened to me in the poetry site, after all these people commenting on my work. maybe it was wrong perception on my part, i was a newbie, what can i do, and then this person who seems to be the leader poet started writing poetry as response to my work, and somehow felt i snubbed him and got slighted and started rallying his women cohorts to write and write, you know that kind os stuff. eerie. and they darn take themselves too seriously. i split of course. it got too hot in the kitchen.
amazing the power of words, isn't it :) and that in itself is the saving grace. put the words to better use next time, ha ha ha
Ah, the opiate of newfound celebrity. ;)
Knowing what you know now, will you join an online writing group again?
i really wouldn't, although i was recently recruited to be part of a filipino group of bloggers where we were all assigned initially to make our introduction pieces and eventually be given topics to write about. it's a 30+ group of people so assignments will come few and far between.
the chat forum is optional and some are definitely more active than the others. i chime in from time to time with hello and goodbye just so i wouldn't be perceived as snobbish again :)
Well, the filipino group sounds good. Less brutal than the poetry fight club.
i know. but there were pretty good poets in there who got some of their work published. imagine me, going in there, writing and not minding about form and all of that, ha ha ha. sometimes i am totally amazed and impressed by my tendency to be idiotic sometimes ;)
I can't say that I've been in your exact position, but I feel as though I can relate to a lot of what you've said in this post. You've captured those familiar feelings pretty effectively.
Coincidentally, I feel a little like an outsider attempting to infiltrate an internet clique by writing this comment. Mrs. P pointed me to this entry, and I just wanted to let you know that I'm glad she did. You're a readable writer, and I appreciate your insight.
MM, I'm hoping the group didn't mind about form. A good writing group lets the members wander of and experiment allowing them to risk and fail in the process of developing the craft. I know I have done it. ;)
Kevin, thank you for dropping by, and thank you for your comment. Please, don't feel like an outsider.
Surfdork from Atrios:
John,
Funny thing is I'm doing the same (staying away from Atrios) for the same reasons you write.
My final straw was insults from 2 regulars during a thread discussion on the 2nd amendment.
I understand there will be opposing views on Atrios, hell I like that. What I don't like is if you differ from the groupthink you will get insulted just like the freepers do.
When I point this out I get insulted , from the same folks.
The snark is tiring as well.
Dear Surfdork
Yeah, I understand about Atrios. I haven't been back there for months. Steve Gilliard, on his blog, sounds as if he's about to have a stroke. I don't get it. I don't understand this full-time, rage-on, superdogma mode that poliblogs have. I understand being devoted to a cause, but I don't like the anger.
I think it has to do with the instantaneous of the media, and if you have a brilliant idea, or post about a problem, you expect instant results. You don't. You just end up herding a flock to keep it as pure as possible. It's all damage control so you cna get as many pure minds to agree with you, blasting them out into flash-mob status to phone/email a senator when the time comes.
And snark is just a poor man's wit. Imagine David Spade quoting Oscar Wilde.
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