incoherence – lack of cohesion or clarity or organization
It’s not writer’s block, nor is it a lack of material to write on. With all the travel, new phenomena, innovative discussions at work and interesting people I’ve met, I can only describe my life and mind as having been enriched over the last few months. So, why the difficulty in putting this thought and discovery to paper blog post? Is it because there’s too much?
No, it’s because I don’t know where to start blogging engaging, thought-provoking posts. You know, kick this joint up a notch, so it isn’t merely a repository of geo and political links, blockquotes and videos that are worthless but to me. This wasn’t a problem when I kept a written journal along with the blog, but that has fallen by the wayside since the onset of shoulder aches induced by mousing and keyboarding all day. Besides, who wants to go from a computer at work to a computer at home where the critters need watching, the lawn needs mowing and the house needs … housing? This is also the reason I haven’t yet uploaded pictures from Germany. That pesky real life.
It hasn’t stopped me from being active on Twitter and email (the old reliable proto-blog), where I feel writing is easier and communication rewarded. Yet, that is placing importance on convenience and quick fixes, when the real object of this blog venture is reverence for the written word, discovery through exposition and communication. Sarah M Ford sums it up nicely in Are Blogs Obsolete?
Does this mean that blogs are obsolete, as Boutin would have us believe? That if you have something to say, you’re better off saying it via Twitter, Facebook, or Flickr? I, as well as many of the commenters at Wired, disagree. As they rightly point out, you can’t say much in the 140 characters that Twitter allows. Flickr and Facebook are much richer environments but even they are simply not the same as the long-form writing that blogging allows.
… On a blog, on the other hand, the written word is front and center. Sure, there may be multimedia support of the written word. In some posts, the multimedia elements may even take front stage. But at some point, somewhere, a blog is about communicating and that communication is still best accomplished via language.
All this means is that I have established there is much to say and say well. On this blog. Now, just how does one coherently write about visiting Dachau, female mariachis, the exhuming of Kuwait and Katrina memories, Europe vs. America and the evolution of civil rights with proper context and discretion? Yes, w00t, I had an ethereal experience seeing the Flaming Lips in an open-air amphitheater on the most beautiful Ohio evening and they played a set list made of awesomeness to which I sang along, but does that constitute an essay? What do I write on and how do I write it well? Just Do It doesn’t seem to help because I don’t know how.
It really comes back to this question I’ve been asking of myself a lot lately: I know who I want to be and what I want to do but how do I get there?
Any bright ideas?
First off, the blogging life is like life in general in that unexamined lives either way are not worth living.
Having said that, I think of what folks did in the days before the blogs and Twitter when all you had were the pages of a book and your imagination. Some of those folks did get their words out through publishing, and were able to judge their impact through sales of their work. Most, however, wrote just to write.
My way of thinking about this, consequently, is if you feel like every time you sit before your computer you have to change the world somehow with your words, you need to step back and live a little. I think you’ve been busy living, which is great. It’s not good to keep yourself chained to a machine all the time, or to be glued to your Sitemeter and Technorati like there’s no tomorrow if your stats have dropped. When you want to say more, I am entirely confident that you will be able to. And even people who make their living from the written word have a hard time finding the right words, but they muddle through ’cause they have to, for the most part. You have the luxury of being able to think about this a little more, OR of just banging it out. Relax and go a little easier on yourself.
When you’re ready, I for one would LOVE to hear about the Flaming Lips concert. I so wanna see them live…and eventually visit Wayne Coyne’s compound in my parents’ new city of residence. 8-)
Ms. Liprap: Thanks for the thoughtful reply. My concern is not so much with site visits and other such stats. Until I found Sepia Mutiny (2004) and the NOLA bloggers (2005), this blog had no comments. It’s about jacking up the quality of this garbage and writing posts that matter to me (as well as others), that are much more than passive links. It is about examining, which I do on a daily basis (in my head) but just can’t get out onto electronic paper. As I allude to towards the end of the post, I have to figure out how to do this to jumpstart extreme creativity at work, too, and not simply invent and jury-rig within existing parameters.