I’ve been having a rough time blogging much of anything lately.. principle because my computer keeps on crashing…. resulting in my loosing whatever it was I was blogging about.. So today I guess we’ll blog somewhat randomly.. and this will be our little chance to catch up a little.

First off there’s the blog strategy stuff.. which in this case amounts to the “why you should bother reading this” stuff. Good question.. I must say I’m an unreliable narrator in this department.. and.. Well.. I’m really just trying to work all this stuff out..

Generally speaking.. I think.. hmm.. I think this blog could have value to.. a kind of wide variety of types. When I write on any subject, no matter how deep I go.. how much I geek out.. or.. just whatever.. I do my best to try and make it so.. if you didn’t know anything about what I was talking about.. you could still follow along.. you could still be a part of the conversation.. And I try to do this in such a way that.. it doesn’t cause me to have to water stuff down.. or simplify things too too much.. That is the person who’s the expert on the subject wouldn’t be bored… Hell, the expert is probably laughing at how poorly I’m treating the subject.

The philosophy of this is.. maybe kind of strange. See, I believe that I can basically do anything.. if I just take the time to learn how to do it: to cultivate within myself whatever aptitudes or capacities are required for the task at hand. My feeling is that we are all capable of this.. but I think…

Well I think we have these notions of Identity inside of which we say “I’m good at this” and “I suck at that,” and somehow we believe that’s the last word on the subject.. as if the reality to that thought wasn’t it’s self a kind of artifice of our own creation… an expression of a static moment that lacks the ability to see the potential trajectory of.. well I suppose the moment.. through space and time, to put it a certain sorta way.

So.. you know.. one of the things that I think is sorta special about me.. is that I’ve transcended that kind of thing.. and that’s something you pick up fast if you follow this blog for any period of time.. that I’ll jump from subject to subject.. where the breadth and depth covered is.. well it might be one of the most impressive things about this blog… so I guess I’m a kind of an exemplar of the idea.. but the thing is.. I think we can all be such exemplars in our own way.. and perhaps we even are but simply fail to recognize it.

Beyond this I think we are all experts in some areas and novices in others…. and there is more area that we are novices in then we are experts in. Frankly, I don’t even really think of my self as an expert in much of anything I write on.. in all of them I’m struggling to climb the mountain.. to be a master of the subject.. I don’t want to be the jack of all trades, master of none.. I want to be the master of all! (I know, I have issues)

I think, on some level, some place in us.. I think we all kind would like that.. but generally don’t have the opportunity. Perhaps we simply don’t know where to begin, or perhaps didn’t even know such a thing was possible at all… or even more likely.. we probably have bigger fish to fry… or what I mean is life has given us other things to concern our selves with.

In any event.. what I figure is I can kind of take you on a little ride.. and you can kind of peer over my shoulder.. to see from a vantage point where you can benefit from whatever understanding I’ve managed to gain from my climb… and perhaps in some way I can cast the light on how one can do this sorta thing.

So that’s kind of one dimension to my thinking about what this blog is.. and why someone might find value in it.

Another dimension is.. I might be blogging on subjects that you might want to learn something about.. and maybe I can help you learn about that stuff. Hell, maybe we can climb together? (What I’d give for a little comradery on with this sorta thing).

Now there are also times where I talk about things from a very personal perspective… You could maybe even argue I’m always doing that. At the very least you could say “now this blogger does not have a detached objective point of view to his narratives.”

Well.. I’ll tell you what.. I think objectivity is in large measure illusory. Even if we take a position of believing in objectivity.. ultimately what you want to do is assimilate that objective stuff into your own thing.. in which case it’s not going to be so objective anymore..

Err, I think I’m doing a crappy job explaining this one.. What I mean is you want to assimilate knowledge, synthesize it with what you already got.. by giving you this stuff in the context of a personal narrative you’re not experiencing it as if it where in a vacume.. further I think there is something known as ’subjective knowledge,’ which for complex reasons isn’t terribly valued today.. but I think there’s something to be gained from it.. particularly when your getting this stuff in that context.

If only I was explaining this stuff better!

The final thing I want to say.. on this dimension of the story is.. there is a kind of personal and collective level to all our stories.. there is a dimension to our suffering that is a universal suffering.. It is a suffering of.. well what is grave and constant in the human experience.. to sorta echo Joseph Campbell.. and even if I’ve gone off in some direction where I don’t have the faintest idea of what value it could have to you…. well what the hell, I’m not really the judge of that anyway, am I?

Beyond all this.. I imagine that some of what I have to say could be of value to you.. and some less so…

Ok.. so I think that more or less covers it? I mean it covers my rational… how I rationalize this blog in relationship to.. blog strategy stuff.. The whole.. know you’re community.. that what you blog about ought to be for that community.. what is it that they want?

But I’ll tell you what.. you tell me what you want.. cause I haven’t the faintest idea.. I’d love to help yeah.. . just give a little yelp in the comments every now and then.. or contact me one way or another.. If this was the sorta blog that had lots of comments.. well.. that surely would help… And I suppose that’s one metric that tells me I’m not doing the greatest job with this blog… but I also know that there’s, generally speaking.. not a high percentage of blog readers who actually comment.. Further more, different blogs elicit different behaviors in readers in relationship to comments..

I have a friend.. lol, he’s kinda crazy.. and I suppose that’s one of the things I love about him… He’s a rather successful fellow.. in the world of PR.. and he does have a hand full of personal blogs.. one of which is a porn blog.. His porn blog has lots and lots of readers.. but guess what? Nearly no one comments..

So.. I guess the note is.. what do you think? I mean do you have any sense of who this blog might be for? Do you think I’m self dilluding in my rational? I don’t know…

This entry was posted on Sunday, June 22nd, 2008 at 6:36 am and is filed under blogging, philosophy, psychology, social media. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.