nar·cis·sism (n): Excessive love or admiration of oneself.
When I first started this blog, it was with the intention that I would try blog about things that I found interesting and worthwhile to share with the masses, or at least my opinion of newly discovered things, as there really isn’t any possibility for me to discover anything that hasn’t already been discussed in the massiveness of the Internet. Then I started doing a podcast with my wife, where in audio form I would also share my various view points on different subjects and ideas and share podsafe music that I like with whosoever was willing to subscribe to my podcast feed. Then along came twitter, and I was able to “micro-blog” my points of views on things and anyone who was willing to follow me would be able to catch my random musings throughout the day. Through all this, my blog has suffered considerable neglect and I have had good intentions on coming back to it but for one reason or another I just kept failing. This realization brought to me some possible reasons for this.
For one thing, what do these various social networks do but feed one’s ego and just perpetuates a narcissistic and an attention-defecit-disorder oriented society. The self-deprecator in me sees this and thus keeps knocking me down a peg to prevent this from happening. This is one of the many reasons my blog keeps failing, and yet, despite myself, I still do enjoy podcasting and whipping out quick 140 character-lined thoughts in the twitterverse. So why have those two ego-feeding tools prospered against my self-defeatism?
Well on my podcast, I’m pretty much just having a discussion with my wife on various topics like we normally do day to day and this particular moment in my life just happens to be recorded and posted on the internet for posterity . I’m not trying to be grandiose or significant in society in my podcasts. I’m just being a regular joe schmo who just happens to record and post things on the internet. There really isn’t much to scrutinize there, except maybe my ego for being able to even do that much; though, since I podcast for a hobby, that takes more wind out of the sail of my internal ego-basher.
When it comes to twitter, I just type what random thoughts hit my fancy, it’s only 140 characters long and then just like that it’s gone in a flash. It’s so insignificant and so temporary that my ego-deflater doesn’t have enough time to catch his breath to utter some emotional-tearing retort. Also I use it to share sites, youtube videos and the like, to the masses and not really have to say much except, “here’s this thing I enjoyed” and then insert a link and boom. Done. It’s kinda like blogging but not really. Which brings me back to…
Blogging… Aye there’s the rub. Blogging requires well thought out sentences, good grammar and good spelling (these things are excused on twitter because you only have 140 characters to express yourself). Also, for my internal admonisher, it should be something worth taking your time to jot down and equally significant to post for all to see. Otherwise, what’s the point of sharing this particular insight of yours, if it isn’t anything new or interesting that will garner notice or more importantly, affect someone in that deep primordial and visceral way that a good writer aims to affect? Yes, a blog is a big and slow enough tool that before I even type my first sentence I’ve already shot down my idea and it just never materializes.
The other problem is finding the time to really think out what I want to say. With twitter you just have to react, type away and off it goes. Now podcasting does take more time altogether than writing a blog entry; however, that’s just in post production. Since I talk more than write on any given day, talking in front of a mic doesn’t garner as much inhibiting responses from my brain the way writing does. Also, as I’ve said earlier, talking to someone versus just my internal thoughts also tends to loosen me enough to be able to express myself. And of course there’s a rapport, a bouncing of ideas and a clash of opposing view points. Dialogue with someone is just dynamic and full of life and such an enjoyment that before you know it there’s a good amount of recorded content ready to be edited and there you have a show. Writing takes all these processes and puts them together into one nice intense self-restraining box that is sometimes really hard to open; hence, the reason for my lack of blog entries (other than when I just copy and paste the show notes of my most recently posted podcast episode).
It is because I’m so inept at blogging that I’ve even thought of terminating this other pastime. But my wife insists that I keep my options open (she fancies me to be a writer someday I guess) and if for anything else, I still have another place to advertise my less nerve-wrecking hobby of mine. Ironically, this is my longest blog entry. Maybe there’s still hope for it after all.
“El Gitano Del Amor”
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JULIO FROM NY 