Why do I blog? I'm not a real expert on anything. My education maxed out with a useless B.S. degree in psychology, but I'm no more an expert on human cognition, emotion, and behavior than your local meter reader. I write a lot about sports, but my fantasy football teams are all 5-4 or 4-5 after nine weeks so I haven't shown any real proficiency there. I write reviews of movies, but a cursory search of the internet can reveal the same movies have been reviewed just as thoroughly and interestingly by others. Politics? Culture? Seven million bloggers wake up every day and have more to say about it than me.
So, why blog?
I suppose if I had to defend my blog my answer would be "Why not?" Cyber space is limitless, and no one is forced to read anything I write or look at anything I create. And for the most part, 99.999% of humanity doesn't. Which means I suppose I have very few people to apologize to if they find my ramblings deficient of meaning or substance. It's rare for me to blog about anything personal or tell the reader what I had for lunch or what I'm wearing or how I feel about almost anything. Largely I consider this a creative blog. Poems. Webcomics. Art. Any day I wake up and have something to eat and can create something anyone else sees that's a good day.
The kicker is I've never even enjoyed writing. I find the process excruciatingly dull and painful. The fact is the new paradigm of the 124 character message aimed at a readership with an attention span that won't allow for much more suits me fine. I don't have the concentration to say more than that, and I don't feel I've earned the right to place more of a demand on the reader. I sincerely admire a writer like Stephen King who wakes up every morning, goes to an office, and writes like a machine. I saw him on C-SPAN one morning addressing a meeting of writers and despite his detractors he's every bit as much a writer as William Faulkner in my opinion.
Mostly what I'm doing is distracting myself from election coverage (to bury the lead horribly). Not that the election results will do much to affect my life directly. I'm in a groove and an orbit I've worked most of my life to achieve and things are solid, strong, and consistent. I'd like to sell more books or know that more people are turned on by my work, but I can live without that. That act of creation is the essential thing and every day I wake up and I make something. Sometimes people say they like what I make or even give me money and that's pretty groovy, but not an essential part of what I do or why I do it.
If being a writer, an artist, or any kind of esteemed content generator were as easy as throwing out whatever were at the top of your head to an audience that was pre-disposed to eat it up like truffles everyone would want to do it. I have over 25 years as a published writer now and virtually no successes to speak of. The muse visits me infrequently and casts her laurels upon others. I'm fine with that, they probably work harder than i do and deserve what they get. I just like knowing once in a while the muse has something for me. A scrap. A trifle. A trinket, and she keeps me in mind.
I think I'll go fire up the television now and watch election results and see what fresh hell awaits us all in the future.
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| The poet Thomas L. Vaultonburg imitating the actor Tim Stotz crossing a bridge in a caption only the poet Thomas L. Vaultonburg will understand or care about. |
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