Like Loki, I suffer from a bit of blog burn-out and have considered simply shutting VatulBlog down and restarting another space dedicated to Project Gutenberg, geophysics and other assorted geekiness. No, no, I’m not turning off the blog and the following tells you why.
The conversations here have been severely lacking since last fall really, and often it’s just me talking to a big electronic wall, while the real dialogue occurs over email and in real life. Yes, this blog still gets a lot of hits and is a great place for media and lay visitors to come a-knockin’, but the discussions are elsewhere and/or most of us are just fatigued. Plus, what am I going to report that you don’t already know? All levels of American government suck, the schools suck, crime is on the rise and the justice system sucks, everyone wants to take you for a ride and Americans are too wrapped up in their warp-speed lives to care. Ho hum.
Plus, if a paradigm exists that blogging mirrors one’s life, this blog doesn’t reflect it (well, except for the part about the trips I take). Most of what I spend my time on — work, bringing New Orleanians with various resources together and taking the time to meet with them, finances for non-profits — I can’t blog about and don’t have the time to, so what’s the point?
The point is to extract head from ass and acknowledge that the problems of New Orleans are a lot larger than mine and different from America’s, and that a vast majority of this city has it much harder than I ever will. Also, there is more going on here than the hopelessness of government, schools, crime, etc. with the occasional indictment or step forward. The point is to publicize these hardships and hard-won victories, bring those email and in-real-life discussions into this blog and, in this second year after Katrina, remember that we’re doing rather than being. We’ve identified the problems, now is the time we act rather than talk about them.
It is also important to remember the 1990s, and that in this field, temporary separations are alright, but never outright divorces. Between the years of 1993 and 1998, I took a hiatus from Internetland and concentrated fully on geology. While my proficiency in technical computing and scientific data interpretation and visualization grew, my social computing knowledge declined. Same with Web 2.0 as I entered the oil industry, although Web 2.0 to me is akin to putting Hello Kitty stickers on Web 1.0 technology, where the real work was done.
I admit that the internet, especially this blog, is my playground and always will be, and I’ll rip my heart out before I destroy this space. Perhaps the combination of a long meditation, realigning this blog to reflect what’s really being done in New Orleans, and creating another one for Project Gutenberg and technical computing purposes is the way to go.
Thanks for listening as I thought out loud.
Just to let you know I feel ya. There is nothing I can write that will increase anyone else’s understanding of how fucked up things are. My blog and I are just waiting for something different or unexpected to happen, and for the current holders of powerful offices to go away.
Hmm. Regardless of what you do or don’t do in your daily life and whether or not those actions make the world a better place, it’s a good idea keep in mind that what you write in this space is primarily personal.
What I mean by personal is that what appear here are things that.. while they may be in the public sphere… are on your mind specifically and which you are offering your personal comment upon.
In other words, yeah it’s kind of a playground. What value that has for you, I leave for you to determine.
I’ve found that keeping a blog and reading blogs has made my daily consumption of the news a more interactive, informative, and.. well.. entertaining activity.
I think if your expectations go beyond that, you’re bound to be disappointed. Or to put it another way… cheer up and please don’t go away.
Can’t say it better than Jeffrey. But he’s a librarian and you know how they are.
Jeez, I hate to agree with Jeffrey but I do. Or maybe I’m agreeing with Marco agreeing with Jeffrey if that’s agreeable.
I’ve never blogged with an expectation of changing things. The best we can do is to express ourselves and hope to make an impact around the edges.
Do what you gotta do.
I must say, however, that I began by thinking I’d be putting out the real goings-on in New Orleans to folks up north I know. The blogging thing has become waaay bigger than that for me, though. Don’t worry. Be happier. Keep blogging, babe.
Yeah, yeah. I’m agreeing with da yaller blogger, too. The world will end in five minutes…
They say having a specific focus or concept makes for good bloggin’. But I just write about whatever’s going on in my life, so what do I know?
And I just tell jokes so I know even less than Bart…
I’m glad you’re not shutting down the blog.
*sigh*
I can see having a separate blog when the subject matter is topically distinct. (I have one with marketing-related stuff for my students.) But, I’m in accord with the rest of the gang here. Each blog is different because each blog’s author is different, and in the subjectivity lies the value, from my perspective.
I see that comments are down in just about all the blogs I read, with rare exception. I comment much less frequently than I used to because the number of blogs I read since the storm is exponentially larger than it was before the storm and I’m much busier now than I was a year ago. I’m having enough trouble just keeping up with what’s been posted day by day. I don’t always have the time or energy to comment. And I agree that we are all pretty tired and burned out at this point.
“although Web 2.0 to me is akin to putting Hello Kitty stickers on Web 1.0 technology, where the real work was done. ”
I got a great giggle out of this…I visualize the MySpace guy’s head exploding upon hearing it.
Blogging is an imperfect expression of your many gifts, but it’s still a beautiful place you have here.
I think we’re all suffering fatigue, but also the Dread of August I felt was palpable last year. If things on other fronts were going better–road home, levees, crime, education, healthcare, anything–it might be so bad. But they aren’t and so here we are.
Some of us started out with a news-linked focus, and how many times can you right the same damn thing over and over again, in hopes that some important person somewhere will stumble across it while web surfing between planes?
Comments are down. My own output is way down over the last several months (but that’s at least in part tied to how much time I could, um, borrow from my last employer, while my current one is sucking me dry and getting every penny’s worth and then some.
I think that the last Rising Tide had some impact on my own outlook, and I hope that a second might be a rallying point before we all digress into navel gazing, where I seem to be going lately.
This is the discussion I’m talking about — this is more like it.
Mark, that’s just it, what we’re doing in our non-blogging lives is anything but navel-gazing, but in blogland, the discussions are wanting.
Jeffrey (and everyone who agreed with him): Thanks for the kind words shared with all. Now, don’t be so modest. Our writing does affect people and cause change. I’m not here just to hear myself speak, but to create discussion, be a part of the working recovery, as you are all, and change the world. Blogging is a different thing for each one of us, but don’t ever say you didn’t (or will not) change anything, even if it was to move someone to think differently, or think at all.
To all: Rising Tide is going to be very different this year. Wait and see.
Vatulblog jumped the Shark in 2006. I say you should close shop.
(Just kidding!)
I have the easy part. I just read what the NOLA bloggers write, and respond critically. But, if you are keeping score, I vote for you to hang in there. The NOLA bloggers do have an appreciative audience.
And if I could just tag a comment onto all the above, I really value all the NOLA blogs. I have often referred to things written/discussed on these blogs I would only know about from reading them. There really is a serious lack of discussion and news about New Orleans here in DFW. Honestly, I only hear things on NPR shows.
I just tried to edit my comment to make it more lucid and I can’t. I’m tired. Hopefully you can get what I’m TRYING to say.
MAD: It’s not a vote, it was just me venting. But, thanks for your confidence. It means a lot.
erika: Your comment reads just fine as is (and I second the TIRED).
Like I said, folks like me have it a lot better than those displaced wanting to get back home, or those here who are having a tough go of it. If this blog offers one of them any information, solace and connection, then onwards it is.
This thing is greater than all of us. As is the world.
Re: “The point is to extract head from ass and acknowledge that the problems of New Orleans are a lot larger than mine and different from America’s,”
…
I live far away from New Orleans, so every comment I make reflects an obvious degree of ignorance. Yet even I can see that the problems of New Orleans, overall, are different from North America’s. At the same time, I’m sure you’re not saying there are not neighborhoods across the U.S. that share SOME of the problems that affect New Orleans (or at least pre-Katrina NOLA)? What stands out for me here is this: not only have I no clue about what life is really like in New Orleans, but I can’t say I REALLY know what life is like in the most troubled, neglected zones of ANY city (in the U.S. or elsewhere).
And now that I’ve already rambled on a bit, it occurs to me: The only reason my reflections here MIGHT be worthwhile for anyone to read is that I am probably typical, in some ways, of many middleclass or uppermiddle class folks, many of whom (though NOT all, obviously) are white. Therefore, maybe I can give a little window into the perceptions of people like me, because I’m at least going to ADMIT to being lame in some ways. (Is admitting it the first step? Not sure!…) In any event, I’d never pretend to know what it would be like to live the zones that have the highest gun violence — in NOLA or anywhere else in the U.S., let alone in an “actual” war zone like Iraq. Yet, by the same token, I try my hardest not to stereotype or WRITE OFF any given part of a neighborhood. And you know, even if certain two-three block radiuses of particular neighborhoods really ARE dangerous at night (“it’s not paranoia if you’re right,” it’s been said), how MUCH more dangerous is it than, say, driving down a heavily trafficked highway almost every day of the year? A risk which barely causes most suburbanites to blink an eye.
“…and that a vast majority of this city has it much harder than I ever will.”
I guess there you’d be acknowledging something similar to what I’d acknowledged above.
“Also, there is more going on here than the hopelessness of government, schools, crime, etc. with the occasional indictment or step forward..”
Yeah, I’d have to say, “even I,” the poor clueless hayseed, who has only visited NOLA twice (in pre-Katrina days, back when I had more disposable income for travel… I’m not avoiding New Orleans now, I’m just broke!)… Even I know what you mean here, and I also know it is true of any place. In the vast majority of places, it seems the vast majority of people spend most of their time doing what they need to do just to keep body and soul together, & if they have a little money and time outside of work, just try to have some fun relaxing with those few souls (family, friends) they hold closest. Although, speaking again from total ignorance, I can only imagine that being a citizen of NOLA these days probably does impute a sense of being part of a large, grand mission, even if you don’t WANT that… no matter how caught up in the details of everyday life. It does seem like there might be subcultures and subcommunities of people down there who are drawn especially close together with a sense of mission or purpose; even though tragically so many people were dislocated and their lives just ripped to SHREDS by the storm…
Finally, thank you for blogging. I’m not sure if MY feeble attempts are insight are useful, but I’m sure yours are! :-)
–MP
Let’s call it what it is: Katrina Fatigue. I’m feeling it, too. It’s hard to keep up the enthusiasm. The news just isn’t so fresh anymore. The urgency of the situation has waned. I’m still living in a FEMA travel trailer, but even I have trouble getting passionate about it anymore. My blog is lagging, I can feel my creativity drying up, and I’m just too busy and too tired to do any better.
Oasis said in song, “I was looking for some action, but all I found were cigarettes and alcohol.” I think that’s what’s happened to us bloggers. We all thought we could make a difference, we all thought we could change the minds of a nation, we all thought we would spark the revolution… but we find that two years and millions of words later, we’re just a tiny subset of bleary-eyed bloggers, adding our digital drops of water to the Internet ocean of the Information Age. Here and there, connecting. But mostly, not.
I don’t mean to sound discouraged or depressed, but this is the state of our community as I see it today. Perhaps Rising Tide 2 will show us the way.
Peace,
Tim
I hope you find the will to keep blogging. There are a lot of “lurkers” like me. My husband and I lost all during the storm. For reasons all too familiar we are having a rough time trying to restore our lives. I read your blog regularly and other NO blogs. I gather useful information and feel less lonely. I don’t actually talk to anyone – to share troubles – because everyone’s got them and we would just exhaust one another. It just helps to read yours and other blogs. Thank you for your wonderful efforts.
p.s. People might read my last comment and kind of say: “What the *&^% — what value is there to this rambling comment?!” But, I realized now that this is what I was really trying to get at: If lots of (relatively privileged) people in the U.S. do not even open their eyes to the problems in distressed and traumatized zones of their OWN metropolitan areas — how would you then expect them to open their eyes to see the full scope of devastation in New Orleans? Or, conversely — perhaps if you can convince people across the U.S. to open their eyes to the neglect of NOLA, then more of them will also be motivated to address the worst problems in their own metro areas, too.
These may be obvious points, but they are the heart of what I was trying to get at. Thank you for bearing with me ’til I realized what I was really trying to say!
Viki, please feel free to chat with us through the comments section or email. Or start your own blog. Helping others is therapy for me, in a small way. When my family and I lost everything in Kuwait, we left for the States and I haven’t been back or seen anyone or anything from my former life since. This has, on and off, been very traumatic for me, and I wish I had something like a blog back then to talk to people and not feel cut off. So, please communicate with us. You and people like you will make the NOLA Blogger space less of an echo chamber! :-)