City of Legends

Sheesh.  Sat down to work more on back-tagging entries for this rapidly-approaching 3,000 entries blog and found that many of them are during periods of my life when I just don’t feel like revisiting.  I have to at least glance at an entry to determine what or who the entry was about, and I find hundreds of entries that I really don’t want to "go there" with.  Aggravating, but duty is duty.  Maybe I will skip around those for now…

Working on the pieces for the White Sunday framework, which will figure into both the book loveaddict and the CD named, not surprisingly, White Sunday.  They have taken an unexpectedly erotic turn.  Really, really red and pink and solferino.  Unexpected, but interesting.  Some of the new pieces are quite good.  I must be inspired. 

This could be very bad.

Finally, just have to comment how beautiful the weather is today here.  Highs around 70 with bright sunshine.

Profundity eludes me this morning.  I am not out of ideas, but I’ve already shared them here, I think, at least the vast majority of them.

Some people miss the essence of the web, the blog, the website like so many "sci fi" authors miss the essence of space travel and combat  (that it does not occur on a 2-dimensional plane, dummies).  Words placed to the web, unless you are a revisionist, stick.  Later today, next week, next year, what you thought about, felt, expressed, will be something new to a person reading it for the first time.

It doesn’t matter if the moment is passed, the person you spoke of for good or ill is out of your life, or you have modified your views with new data or experiences.  What you said on (random date) November 12, 2007, stays in the world’s perception (now I have to go see what I wrote that day…hmmm…it seems on that day I was talking of my never completed but very active project at the time entitled "12").

I access, in my memory, all memories and emotions as current.  It seems odd to me that not everyone does, but I have been told by some pretty impressive sheepskin wrapped professionals that it is unusual.  I can pick a moment in my life and relive it…great for mood alteration and writing.  Not so good when I get tired and my mind wanders…how would you like to accidentally, relive a few of the worst days of your life?  In a matter of seconds?  Fun.  It will probably be, in the end, that which destroys me.  I digress.

So to have a place to go where I can see the flow of time in my own life, that is actually quite therapeutic.  It also keeps me honest.  By assiduously not modifying my past entries (except for the occasional catch of an overlooked typo) I have to be true to the past, and this is a good thing, because although we live in the present with an eye to the future, we are built of the past.

I once had a rather strange (but understandably motivated) soul come on here and bash me in a comment for talking about myself so much.  Another came on and bashed them for not understanding what a blog is. It is a "web-log", a journal, a personal diary made accessible.  Yes, I often speak of others and to purposes, cause and the forces that shape our world, but in the whole this is about me, all two thousand and whatever entries so far.  Sometimes boring, sometimes silly, sometimes painful to write and to witness, but it is truth, at least my entries.

That there are those on several continents who feel daily that they want to see what I am thinking or feeling, or whom I am thinking and feeling for, I am flattered and honoured.  That when I skip a few days I get nastygrams from people wondering why I haven’t posted in a few days, I am touched.  I am not doing this to get rated on a social network or win a prize or woo a woman (not at the moment, anyway), I am just doing it because that is what I do, I write.  And as Elizabeth Barrett Browning learned, what one writes is so much more fulfilling when shown to the world and not kept locked up in a dresser drawer or a hard drive, away from the eyes and hearts and souls of others.

Maybe profundity was not so slippery as I thought, this fine morning.

The kind souls at War of Art wrote a charming bit on the business of blogging and paid particular attention to my love and life, Candy, and her blog "Inside Candy"

War of Art discusses personal blogging

I would suggest you read this…

I wrote this piece as a comment on a post on Candy’s blog, Inside Candy, regarding pissing contests and rudeness on the web. Those of you who have read me for a while already know my opinions on the topic. But for those of you who do not frequent the most beautiful woman in the world’s blog, or haven’t been reading me long, I will take her advice and post it directly…to my blog….
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You’re right, Candy, in comparing it to road rage. People behind the wheel of their car often feel anonymized, able to be as violent, cruel and nasty as they can be.

Dwight Moody said “Character is what you are in the dark”: We treat people when we feel anonymous or that they cannot strike back at us like we really would like to treat people. A sad commentary on many people on the web.

On the web you will find people building emotional firewalls so they can vent their venom on anyone and everyone, just because in real life, by condition or culture, they feel constrained. Put a civilized gentleman or lady in a mask and you may have a villain rather than a hero, as most depend on laws and group ethics for their morals, not some internal structure or philosophy.

You will find so many people abroad on the web who have rage to vent, and in the anonymous or sheltering arms of the cyberverse, they will display characteristics that shock, offend and harm others (I am not saying that about present company, but I have seen malice aplenty from people who even take it a step further even create false identities to screw with others).

Unfortunately, not everyone thinks the information superhighway should be a demolition derby, and that’s where the disenfranchised, venting their darker elements, often pollute the experience for those who could bring much more to it and help build a balanced online society. I have seen eloquent and intelligent people driven from the web by the malice and cruelty of others.

From time we all need to look in the mirror and see who we are, and see what others see, and ask if what we are doing is of value to us, to others, and to society as a whole.