Monday, August 15, 2005

The Tao of Blogging

Rust’s entry on blogging set me thinking. He wrote, “People stop asking about each other's life, but ask each other about their blog entries.”

A blog has become a deceitful likeness of a person. It promotes a false sense of intimacy where one feels close to someone he/she hardly knows or talks to.

I blog (see blog has become a verb) to remember an experience, to capture a feeling or a thought, or simply to reminisce. With each entry on my blog, I peel off a layer of myself exposing fresh skin that is otherwise unknown to others, except my close friends. I write about things that would usually leave me raw and vulnerable if I share them with others. With a blog, I can write with honesty, hiding behind some written text. The blog gives me a false sense of security as I peel off layers after layers of myself and of my life. There is no instant reaction from blog readers that would render me disappointed that I am not being understood, that I am disliked for who I am. There are no instant ramifications that I have to face when I am too forward with my views and my strong emotions.

With blogging, each blogger, whether intended or not, is guided by a consciousness that his/her written text would be read, would be talked about and would be shared among others. This consciousness is a double-edged sword. For some, it prompts them to be honest and to write something edifying. For others, it turns them into cowardly writers. These writers write to create an image, which could be fake, that they want the world to know them for. They write to put forth a point which they do not have the courage to bring up in a social setting.

I have come to loathe certain bloggers and have to implore my Creator to equip me with a more generous heart and more goodness to subdue this loathing, so that I can at least appear civilized and polite to these bloggers when I see them. This could easily be resolved if I have gone to them and made known to them my displeasure. An interaction would promote some form of reconciliation if he/she and I are not hiding behind some written text, so that our thoughts and our feelings could be out in the open to be challenged, examined and to be corrected.

However, given the abrasive nature of human interaction, which is one reason, I think, for the proliferation of blogging, we prefer to be nested in the safety of blogging scripts. This is the irony of being a human. We want to be understood and we do that by voicing our thoughts, our views, our feelings and our experience but we do not want the messy consequences of voicing them face-to-face to others. Blogging seems to fulfill that purpose.

If I am offended by an entry, I can’t ask the blog instantly and have to wait for an opportunity to clarify with the blogger, which may never come. Worse, you don’t have a chance to clarify if you don’t know him/her. As a result, his/her version of the “truth” lies on his/her blog unchallenged; my loathing for him/her is left to breed.

Therein lies the wisdom of Socrates’ rebuke of written text, as he said to Phaedrus:

“I cannot help feeling, Phaedrus, that writing is unfortunately like painting; for the creations of the painter have the attitude of life, and yet if you ask them a question they preserve a solemn silence. And the same may be said of speeches. You would imagine that they had intelligence, but if you want to know anything and put a question to one of them, the speaker always gives one unvarying answer. And when they have been once written down they are tumbled about anywhere among those who may or may not understand them, and know not to whom they should reply, to whom not: and, if they are maltreated or abused, they have no parent to protect them; and they cannot protect or defend themselves.”

Christ came and lived in communion with His people. He spoke and he acted. Or did he write? As bloggers, do we write more than we speak or act?

Blogs become a tool for cowards, for socially inept people like me to hide behind written text, instead of living in communion with others, instead of speaking our thoughts out loud.

Technology conspired with us to disseminate our thoughts and opinions at a pace that outdo readers’ ability to process them, and left too much unexamined. Thoughts unexamined are just mindless babbling, aren't they?

So, in that sense, should we “sow words which can neither speak for themselves nor teach the truth adequately to others?” Should blogs or written text, like Socrates suggested, be a pastime to amuse and as “memorials to be treasured against the forgetfulness of old age” only?

4 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

I re-read the piece, as promised.

This bit intrigued me...

"Christ came and lived in communion with His people. He spoke and he acted. Or did he write? As bloggers, do we write more than we speak or act?"

I had this thought. How did you know Christ came and lived in communion with His people? Through writing right? In a way, the Bible can be viewed as a "blog" of what has happened a long long time ago (hopefully i am not saying something blasphemous, and if so, please dont take offence to my apparent ignorance)

Uncle K

8:40 PM  
Blogger eternal bough said...

This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

10:38 PM  
Blogger eternal bough said...

thanks uncle K, it is so hard to be my friend, isn't it? So much is expected of you. Must re-read blog somemore. muahhaahaaa...from what I read from Luke, Mark and Matthew, He mostly walked around, sometimes rode on donkeys, spoke to people, prayed, fed people, performed miracles. I saw Him in action in speech, I don't recall reading about Him writing. Well, I wrote that to remind myself that blogs cannot replace fellowship, that I need to go out and reach out to people, talk to people. I would prefer to live behind written text only (it is more convenient to hide), but I should not.

So, whether that is true about Christ? I also don't know. See, I am an irresponsible writer. I wrote that based on an impression reading the Bible and not of thorough research. I wrote that without engaging my mind. You, as a reader, can dismiss that point now that the truth is out - the writer knows not what she is writing. This interaction is good, it helps the writer (me!) to get her act together.

Should the Bible be viewed as a blog or as written text and therefore like written text, it cannot fulfill the purpose of the pursuit of truths, according to Socrates' arguments? (sorry rephrasing your question)

(personal note: don't like stupid Socrates' point anyways. Books are great! I love reading books. I dont know what to do without books. Those old greek people damn useless, don't know what they are talking about. They gathered by some stupid river and talked rubbish.)

Sorry about the gripping. Pai seh.

Ahem!!

Socrates said written text is useless in the pursuit of truths because it does not allow interaction. In that regard, the Bible is not like the written text Socrates so disapproved of. We can reach God (the ultimate writer) and asked him to reveal the truth in that "written text" which is the bible in this case. We asked Him through prayers and our prayers are not met with a 'solemn silence.' He revealed the truth to us through people and through our life experiences (for me tribulations mainly, a lot err. so cham. you got to buy me more orange juice, thanks!) The written text is not left defenseless or "parentless" (quoting Socrates)

Most often, written text reveals the writer' intellectual insecurity. I often find writers unable to defend their points when I approach them. They hide behind their writings (refering only to writers who write about issues not of their experience and their emotions) because they know that they won't be able to defend them because they themselves have not thoroughly think through them before writing them. They frame their opinions in beautiful writings that seem intelligent and coherent - a deceitful ploy to hide their intellectual insecurity. How many times have you been amazed by the brillance of some writings only to be disappointed when you meet the writers? Of course, given time and research, everyone can write something intelligent and seemingly salient. But can they stand behind their writings?

That is why I can't understand the virtue of being annoymous writers.

In this postmodern world, words and written text are such dangerous things. They take a life form of its own where the writers have no control of. If there is an avenue for the readers to interact with these writers, at least the writers can help shape that lifeform and not let it grow into some kind of an unwanted monster.

Are annoymous writers irresponsible? There is no accountability, is there?

10:53 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

when i started blogging, i decided i will write for myself. i need an outlet to let go of my emotions, i blog. it helps me think.

do i want people to read it? sure, but not people i know personally. you are right, blog gives the readers the idea of knowing you better than actually it is. besides, the blog is just part of me, misuderstanding arises when one only looks at part of someone (like the back)...

recently, some people found that i blog (sometimes only takes one person to spread...), they want to read it. my answer is no, if you want to know me, there're many ways to do so, reading my blog is not the best way. it might help them know me, but knowing that my friends are reading, i will run into the risk of writing for them to know me... not something i want to get into.

i just want to write honestly... i don't want to write and lie...

(thus the name change.)

7:35 AM  

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