I’ve just finished some extensive research into the art of blogging. Some may be surprised to learn that this blog, indeed the first few posts, were created prior to the author (quite a self lubricating use of the title author i know) ever exhibiting an interest in any one else’s blog. So my early posts could be considered a kind of premature ejaculation, this is typical of my anomalitic sense of self importance. Indeed until just now I’d read very few blogs in my time and had never been a follower in the cyber sense, although I do like the idea - so once I have pacified my obscure suspicion that committing to such an arrangement will be too complicated or in some way demanding I will pluck up the courage and click ‘follow’, multiple times probably.
Any way I’ve made several key observations from my research that have caused me to reconsider my approach and, write this. You see a common feature of the blogs I have encountered is they include some sort of introduction or preface that, in part, makes some sort of concerted effort to justify why they are excreting their thoughts all over the place. Secondly i havn't been writing enough in the first person, da da! Another observation is I need to either assert my views with a cocksure strut or be sufficiently unbiased and ambiguous to guard against any disarming comments. I am good at creating an illusion of the former but it scares me and will often find myself whittling and welding to do the later, but I don’t want to do that either. You might be surprised once again (I am often a very surprising person) to learn that although I have now read quite a few posts in several blogs none of them actually resemble what I have just described, I am just guessing that some do. If you like I was using a poetic licence or a kind creative misting to illuminate my own preconceptions of what a blog is for.
So if you are reading this, are you? (It’s good for me to jokingly insinuate that I have had some kind of rendezvous with metaphysical ideas) I have three things I want to say to you: congratulations, a warning and a plea
1) Well done. Simply well done because undoubtedly I will not overtly advertise this to anyone, it will be a dormant monster brooding with unconsummated intent. A putrid paradox - where I will faithfully add to it, half hope people will stumble upon it or notice the inconspicuous link on my facebook details page yet never tell anyone to look on it, fearful I will be defined by it. Oh no no never - that would presuppose that in some way I think it is good or has value and woe betide anyone who thinks that. This congratulation was going to be shorter but on writing it I have been forced to examine myself, internally not mirrors and prongs. I have a new found respect for authors, anyone actually who expresses themselves creatively or honestly and presents it, it is a risk. I have for a while thought risk is vital to real open relationship, they require vulnerability. Perhaps willingness to risk being vulnerable is a necessary stance if we want to engage with another person’s ideas, experiences and creations. I am beginning to think this willingness to be vulnerable is required for creativity, at the least vulnerability before yourself; “go on surrender yourself to your own mercy and get your juices flowing” would be my tagline in an advert advocating this brand of leap, imagine it intonated by a big green dinosaur on roller-skates or gushed by a tiger with bating eyelids and flowing hair.
2) My warning follows thus – (its hardly apocolyptic) the quagmire of scribbled potential projects, lists of ambitious to do’s, piles of unread books, art equipment in the corner and barren broken bike all give substance to this warning. Testament to the fact that I have phases and fads, ideas that rise and fall, bouncing from one another each crescendo echoing into another, they germinate and are neglected. From an outside perspective it would seem that these phases and fads I mention must be another example of my creative misting, by that I mean if you were to watch me you would think I have relatively stable and consistent interests and passions – I do yes, but partly only because these ideas, interests and ambitions are in such a constant state of flux I have no time to act on them before they change. Granted they all have a similar trajectory but the point remains, well will remain once I make it. But first, unlike the list at the beginning of this warning I do have one example which emphasises the point, noisily and visually.
http://www.myspace.com/adultjazz
You see. There lies either a short lived phase of musical ambition or an attempt to strike the comedy chord. Here it is, the point, I rarely follow anything through with a commitment that makes anything of quality. I am in a reflective thoughtful wordy type phase, often the case, but at the moment stroking those thoughts into written word appeals to me as does having one place to store/present them. How long this will last, I cannot say...warning this blog is probably a fad.
3) My plea isn’t as desperate as you may predict. Please do leave any comments, is all I ask. I am cowering as I write. If anyone writes anything negative or in disagreement I will delete their post and probably the whole blog and leave with my head hung, hosting tiny red eyes. You see its an uncomfortable invitation to rethink - an invitation that, if accepeted, may demand me to recreate myself in some small way. No, despite the simple truth that few like being contraired on, I think it is important so please contrair away. (thats right I can make up words if I so wish, on this web address - in this space - contraired is a word, use it at will)
