Tuesday, April 12, 2016

The morning is a magically quiet time. Before dawn, there is no traffic or birds, no wind, no television, radio, or music playing. It is dark and cold and the air feels a little wet on your skin. The air is also full of oxygen, being compressed in its coolness, and gulps of air can hyperventilate you in a pleasant morning head-rush. The only things going on in the morning-time are things you let happen. You're still in control because the complex gears of the day haven't latched in yet. So your head is clear, perfect for updating a blog, like I'm doing now this morning.

The way I write a blog post, either in the morning or the middle of a busy day (because I never let things distract me from writing) is by capturing my thoughts themselves. It takes a head full of words and thoughts to capture a blog post. I have to launch my brain in a certain direction, then, when I'm in the middle of some great idea, I begin to write it down. The momentum from when I first started a thought carries through as I'm writing and the topic changes. Then, I'm writing at a faster pace and getting more ideas down in a smaller space. But I sometimes write in a coordinated, careful way. That's when I write from an outline and I have a specific message to get across. Sometimes I mix both forms of writing. I enjoy them both equally, the academic outlining-kind-of-writing and the stream of consciousness discovery-kind-of-writing. Sometimes I even make up words. Like blog. Oh wait--

Blog is a word full of questions. Where does it come from? Whats the root of the word? Why does it sound like burping? Why is it such a common word in our lives, so that we all know what it means, but it is such a new word? Is the internet boom the sole reason we know this word? Or, in fact, have blogs been around for generations, just waiting to be given the name "blog?" In being named blog, the form of a published journal was given a new kind of cathartic silliness, with updates being a sure way to release tension in the mind. So, in the blogs of past, were they not relaxing to the author? Have previous iterations of this idea we now call blogging been actually dangerous? If they were dangerous then, why is it not dangerous now? Or is it? Will I be more stressed out, more strung out, more targeted, more questioned, doubted, hated, and infamous for writing in my blog?

I'm really not sure. I think blogging is safe for the most part. At most I might be viewed as an annoying distraction in the news feed. I don't honestly thing writing a blog puts me on a hate list. I don't think its hugely controversial. I could say just about anything and not make any enemies. I could post every day and not be cast out of society. I can't get put on a government list for blogging, I won't be stalked, I won't be deleted from friends lists and I won't be blocked out of people's lives. Oh wait--

Is Facebook the dangerous form of blogging? Is being in the public arena with our Facebook accounts giving us an excuse to hate each other? When writing your thoughts and journaling your day might have been viewed as more risky,  was writing that journal the same danger level as using Facebook? Before Facebook, was blogging a safe new way to journal, paving the way for the more masochistic form of Facebook posting? Blogging was a safe way to get thoughts out of your head and express them, but Facebook is a way to tell the world you who you disagree with. All kinds of Facebook drama is possible through the social network. Facebook is like blogging without smart words like blog to avoid tension between people who do it.

When Facebook doesn't get you put on a list or make you hate your friends, it will be on the level of blogging. But, because the human condition loves risk and drama, that will probably never happen.

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