Sunday, 23 February 2003

Why blog (revisited)? Halley wrote this about writing and blogging. It reads in part: And everything I ever learned about writing didn't matter anymore. Everything I ever thought about writing went out the window as the breeze blew through my hair and the words poured out of me. I didn't have to take writing seriously. I didn't have to take words seriously. I didn't have to sound like anyone else. I didn't have to sound like The New Yorker -- which weirdly, I sometimes sound like a little by NOT TRYING TO SOUND LIKE IT. So it showed me that I had a lot of hang-ups about writing and it showed me how to get over them fast. It showed me how to sound like myself. It gave me back my voice, which surprised people and surprised no one as much as it surprised me. Blogging was a place I could go and be me, completely, totally, unapologetically me. And if people didn't like it, screw 'em. And I could write the hell out of the screen and if it blew up and disappeared, it didn't matter anyway, because I could always come back and try something else again later. So despite all my inclinations towards bottles of ink and pads of paper, I started to blog and blog and blog and blog and there was no stopping me. Now, I can't write like Halley does -- too square and stodgy me. But that's kinda the way I've felt writing email over the last 6 years or so. I found a voice. You see, deep down I have scant regard for rules, normal notions of what and what not to say and how to say it. But I've not had the courage to really be myself in person. In email I could let it out, write long, rambling stream-of-consciousness stuff, outrageous stuff, share my inner feelings with a friend, whatever. I could insult the entire department in a single email, then sit back and watch the heads pop up (prairie dogging) as people read it, giggling to myself. I love it, I do. I found a place where I could be me. And I'm still wondering how the blog fits in. I admit, I started this thing not so much to express myself as to get "out there", be heard. I want to start a business that focusses on communication and knowledge sharing, and I thought, felt, that in some unknown way, blogging might give me some insight and inside edge into the next technological wave. So, it was going to be a blog by me, the corporation. But it's becoming personal. It's becoming a blog by me, the person. The thing is, I don't know how far I can go. Halley and wKen and others display bravery in baring themselves to the world. It's easy to read personal stuff and enjoy it, but have you ever thought about writing it? I'm middle-aged, uncomfortably square, married with young children. I can write a laddish email to a single, male friend but this is different. Colleagues, children, family may read it. Unless one is unattached, without young children, there are limits. The voice has to be toned down a little, censored if you will. Is that a lack of courage on my part? Probably. Anyway, it's late and I'm under the influence of Chivas Regal, so I'm rambling. This was just an exploration of how I feel. 10:38:56 PM    comment []

Cool After a decent wait for my ISP to begin offering ADSL I'm hooked up. 512/128K, always on. Woo hoo! There was a slight hiccough as for 2 days I was without the line filters that let me use the 'phone while the ADSL is active. That's all fixed now. Then I bought a new Apple Airport Extreme base station. Woo hoo to the power of 4! Yeah, it's kinda cool sitting in bed or at the kitchen table with 512K Web access. It's even cooler that all I have to do is flip up the lid of the notebook and I have instant Web. No dialing up, no wait, nothing. This is the way it should be. Of course, life isn't that simple for the older Win2K PC: for some reason best known to Microsoft, Win2K won't recognise the existence of peripherals, like even the speakers, if they aren't turned on and active when the PC boots. Maybe I'm fussy, but even this techo thinks it a bit rich to have to go to Control Panel / System / Device Manager and right click to scan for hardware changes just because I forgot to turn the speakers on in time. Bah. Even that doesn't work for the ADSL modem. Bah squared. The dude in the Apple shop said once I switch, I'll never go back. I'm starting to believe him. 3:02:19 PM    comment []

Down Sunday. I feel OK. Yesterday I didn't. I don't know whether the depression reasserted itself for a little while, or whether I was unwell. Tired, lethargic and only partly there mentally. It's like most of my non-essential faculties shut down, rather like when one is tired and a bit drunk. Words are hard to put together, actions clumsy, thoughts the same. The here and now isn't too bad but what happens 5 minutes' ago disappears into the soft-focus distance. I can remember OK what I did earlier in the day, but the mental images are more like visualising a narrative from someone else than remembering for real -- like when one reads a book and "sees" it happening. It might be the change of seasons, or the constant smoke pollution. I don't know. I hate those days. 2:33:58 PM    comment []