As I read Alex's piece, I had to stop in my tracks and do two things: Ask myself if I'm the one who wrote this, because it sounds excatly like what I would say. And, two, not read any further and get all my thoughts on to this post before I forget them all. I assure you, I will finish reading...and maybe even post again if I find anything worthwhile...once I get these thoughts out.
"I have often wondered why anyone would chooce to put their most private thoughts and emotions online for what can sometimes be a very public audience," she says. And I too have wondered the same thing. Do we do this for attention? As a cry for help? Do we do it because we want to be "published"? We want to see our work in some fancy medium? Do we do it because we've always secretly wanted someone to read our faboulous compositions in our journals?
Writing has always been something I've loved and excelled at. I was never in the "high" math or science groups, but always somehow managed to find myself in those "high" writing, reading, and spelling groups. But see, even writing this is displaying personal information about myself--maybe not something as personal as what I write in my journal--which I assure you is tucked away and WILL NEVER BE POSTED ONLINE--but it still is personal. Why did I feel a need to say that? Does it or will it have validity to the argument I am trying to make. I think it was going to, but now I've found myself on a tangent proving this point. Do we blog because we want to talk about ourselves in a society that we really don't have the opporutnity to do so? Is blogging the only time we can be selfish, self-involved, self-consumed.
Perhaps so. But perhaps not. I'm not sure. I know the only time I get to be self-consumed is when I write in my journal or occasionally see my therapist. Yep, I see a therapist--and I'm once again talking about myself. Our society doesn't allow enought for self. There are too man other tasks to complete, too many other people to work with, not enough alone time--"thinking" time. Maybe it's almost as thought our society demands the blog--or else we'd really go insane, and there would be no "thinking" time.
But then, if we demand the blog, why can't we just demand the journal? I don't have a blog (outside of this one for class) for this reason alone: I will no longer be writing for myself, for my deepest thoughts, for self-discovery, for therapy; I will be writing for an audience. I do that enough. I try to please people enough--gosh, once again personal! My private thoughts are for me and my journal. They no longer become private when they're posted on the Internet for the world to see. And then, where has MY time gone? It's no longer. Even though you've taken time out of your own day to post that blog, have you done it for the sake of others, for your audience? Or truly for yourself?
Alex asks, "what is the point of supplementing this new digital mode in place of the esteemed, traditional form of writing in print?" And i don't think it should be supplement. Traditional print should always exisit--and if it doesn't, we have made the wrong choice and future generations will pay. I see blogging as another hobby, like running or knitting. It should not replace the other forms of writing. Will the secret journal be a thing of the past? What will happen to privacy?
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2 comments:
I agree with many of Khrista’s views on traditional writing and the idea that it needs to always exist. I do not think the new digital mode will or can completely take over the printed page but think it will change the way we view writing in many ways. I still have high hopes for the printed page, as we discussed in class, because I know my eyes can only last so long reading on the computer- not to mention I am not sure it would be the best idea to bring a laptop or digital tool on the beach just for some leisurely reading.
I understand Khrista, too, esp. the part about always performing for others, never having enough time . . . and also feeling that email and the web--including this class I proposed and am teaching now--devour time. I wrote this on a blog in the last class:
"Time is what I have lost, and I have lost it to text--to the constant demand for me to read it and produce it. Text is the fourth dimension, and I am living in it, with it, under it, never on top of it, never, ever ahead of it. People say, what could be better, earning a living reading books? But reading books is a relatively small part of my teaching life. Mainly I am reading student writing, much of it wonderful (some less so), and responding in writing: text for text . . . then talking about text. All this would be fine were it not for the fact that text has, for all intents and purposes, replaced time. Too much text, too little time."
Technology definitely exacerbates my feeling of being buried in text . . . and one of my good friends, a writer, has sworn off cellphones and strictly controls his email usage in order to protect himself and his writing (time). Anyway, I also like what Dave says about "m- m-m-my generation" feeling responsible for reigning in technology, including internet excesses of all kinds (in fact, that seems like a publishable idea to me, btw). I just connected a computer to the internet in our living room for my 5-year-old, last night! She already tells me to find various websites for her (and last night asked whether she was getting a printer, too). So what about her generation? This is what I need to know.
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