Blog to the future

Despite initial plans to create a permanent record, I’ve recently entertained thoughts of taking down this blog. So, I decided to blog about that.

Writing unfiltered, with the possibility of it being read by everyone I know or will ever meet, or anyone who knows anyone I know or have ever met, or that anyone I don’t know who knows anyone you know who knows my sister’s kindergarten teacher…

Ahem. Hock-too spit. Let’s start over. Writing unfiltered was an invaluable tool in learning to think more precisely. I have learned how to take a vague reckoning or hunch, and sharpen it into something dangerously close to coherence, using those oh-so-inadequate vessals of human expression we like to call words. In exchange for the effort, I found out what I really thought. Which was okay. I mean, it was cool, really. I’m glad I know! If I didn’t, who would? I’m not planning to proclaim to the citizens of New Hampshire that I found my voice anytime soon, but the experience was moderately neato. It is certainly better to know what I really think than to not know what I really don’t think.

Exporting thoughts from brain to blog helped free my mind from loose thoughts having run of the place, giving me many more spare cycles to think about interesting things, such as food, sex, philosophy, or whatever is in front of my face at the moment. Or all of the above, if I could be so fortunate.

I don’t think hard, I think smarter.

“If ever I would stop thinking about music and politics
I would tell you that I pooped in my own dog dish
And sometimes I would rather face not eating
than face licking it clean”

- Michael Franti of the Disposable Heroes of Hiphoprisy, “Music and Politics” (1992)

Eww, God that is a gross metaphor. Let me go with this quote instead:

“If ever I would stop thinking about music and politics
I would tell you that music is the expression of emotion
And that politics is merely the decoy of perception”

- Michael Franti of the Disposable Heroes of Hiphoprisy, “Music and Politics” (1992)

There we go. Now I feel a lot more intelligent, and we don’t have to be talking about eating dog poop.

In the Supreme Court nominations of my mind, blogging has been my method of establishing mental stare decisis. In the real Supreme Court nominations, stare decisis is the method pseudo-erudite members of the Judiciary Committee use to teach the drooling public highfalutin Latin phrases for the word “precendent”.

In addition, I’ve gotten major jollies by blogging SAT words and self-styled sentence strizzucture, without having to worry about the Talib Kweli syndrome.

“I don’t get many compliments, but I am confident
Used to have a complex about gettin’ too complex”

-Talib Kweli of Black Star, “Brown Skin Lady” (1999)

Let’s revisit my initial stated reasons for blogging (although notice that I never stated they were reasons for blogging, I just said they were “reasons”).

“Explored the world to return to where my soul begun
Never looking back or too far in front of me
The present is a gift
and I just wanna be”

- Common, “Be (Intro)” (2005)

1a) Blog as passive aggressive way of keeping in touch.

Verdict: No longer necessary.

We all now have semi-permanent mobile phone numbers, email, and social networking websites — at least people in my generation. And people younger than me? Fuggedaboutit.

Plus, I’m damn good at backing up my data, so I won’t lose your number. So let’s just be honest that if we’re not in touch it is not because there is a barrier of distance, its our choice.

“If something’s on your chest then let it be known
See I’m not your every five minutes, all on the phone”

- Black Thought of The Roots, “You Got Me” (1999)

And, my friends, that’s cool. I’m not a big social planner anymore, checking events off the list. Wherever I am, I’m probably happy where I’m at. I’ll see you when I see you, and then I’ll be happy where you’re at. If I concentrate hard enough, I might even be able to pull off being happy where I’m not. Unless someone starts messing with my family, or, you know, talking unreasonably about Barack Obama or something.

Plus, you know, haven’t we bloggers and social networkers ever heard of a little mystery? Dude, how can my heart grow fonder for you if you are never absent???

1b) Blog as letter to my future self.

Verdict: Useful as a memory backup; perhaps too lifelike.

Reading my past writing is tolerable compared to say, watching those old tapes of myself from the security camera at the convenience store where I used to work. Blog postings, in which I actually had to flesh out a concept, and generally tried to stay on topic, are far superior to the reams of data generated by my life recorder (see post numero uno for more info on the life recorder).

But with the Internet, my past self can not only send my future self a letter, he can cling to his existence far past his expiration date, like those clones in “The 6th Day“. Always just a link away, he remains indelible in the space-time continuum like so many Marty McFlys skateboarding around friggin’ Hill Valley.

2) Blog as egomania.

Verdict: Split the difference.

Blogging as an expression of ego was meant as a joke, and as a sly preemptive excuse in case I ever blogged too personally or self-centeredly. But, since I’m comfortable that I think I know what I think I know I think I know, trying to obtain validation from my peeps on my supposedly brilliant thoughts isn’t as big a deal. Still, scrutiny of any reader kind enough to scrutinize should help avoid groupthink among my gemini twins.

“See I know there’s really nothing new under the sun
But yet I want to do it like it’s never been done”

- John Reuben, “Thank You” (2002)

3) Blog as expression of sarcastic, dry self.

Verdict: No longer relevant.

God bless the memory of the class clown who did whatever absurd behavior it took to subvert that institution of ultimate soul-crushing hypocrisy, my fifth grade English class. I had a damn good time with that. I still say it was as obvious as the day is long that many aspects of school and the adult world were a joke. When they threatened you with a mark on your “permanent record” just because you got detention, it wasn’t really true.

But now I actually care. About justice. About goodness, beauty, and living things. About trying to be nice to underpaid teachers. I have for a while and actually I always did. So call it a kindler, gentler sarcasm. To be so ironic as to do away with irony. Whoa.

“Sometimes I think you have to march right in and demand your rights, even if you don’t know what your rights are, or who the person is you’re talking to. Then on the way out, slam the door.”

- Deep Thought by Jack Handey

4) Blog as historical archive.

Verdict: Posterity ain’t what it used to be.

Omigod, permanence and attachment are like, soooo 2005. I should probably hang onto my personal archive of writing, notes, and such, but surely some of the stuff I’ve posted didn’t actually merit public release, Googling, and Waybacking. I don’t mind “sharing” as a value that makes sense when I’m teaching it my four-year-old son, but if authors aren’t filtering what is and isn’t worth saving up front, who do we expect to do it?

Compared to the way I treasure the small folder of letters my grandfather wrote to me, it is amusing to think about what our grandkids will make of all this pristinely preserved minutia. Forty-year-old twitters. Decades of accumulated social networking “friends”. The first election where both presidential candidates have Myspace postings dating back to middle school. A lifetime of last.fm charts, chronicling every song someone ever listened to — with the playlist accessible to stream from a kiosk next to where your remains are interred.

Even if these online identities are killed off, or given periodic e-haircuts, they’re sure to live on in some Internet archive somewhere. In the end, the deluge of TMI digital debris will likely become so vast and commonplace that future generations will ignore most of it. Future genealogical programs will be data miners designed to extract Facebook wall posts about significant events in the lives of past generations.

There is one case in which regularly recording your thoughts and opinions is useful, though not to the author. If you do something crazy or notorious, all of your Internet work will suddenly become of great interest and meaning to the public. For example, nothing beats the beautiful banality of “American Taliban” John Walker Lindh’s last postings to alt.rap before trekking to the Middle East and ultimately joining the Taliban. First he began to talk about Islam and repudiate some aspects of the hip hop culture, and finally he listed “for sale” all of his CDs, including DJ Jazzy Jeff & The Fresh Prince’s “He’s the DJ, I’m the Rapper”.

Anyhow, I don’t plan to be crazy or notorious, unless perhaps the super-delegates start acting up.

5) Do more writing. Attempt to write some truth.

Verdict: Always good to do.

Have definitely done more writing. Working on that skill has helped me professionally as well, in day to day tasks that involve putting a few words together. Thanks blogging! *thumbs up*

Ah, so we come to “truth”. I am now putting “truth” in quotes, how meta-clever, eh?

I strongly wanted to find and write the truth about things. Unless the truth inconvenienced execution of a joke, exaggeration, or lie that I needed in order to write something funny. Still, I will testify that you will find throughout these nearly three years of blog postings:

* Funny truth.
* Unfunny truth.
* Funny lies.

But you will not find:

* Unfunny lies.

I usually limited myself to writing on topics that lent themselves to humor, or, well, at least slight bemusement. Admit it, this blog is bemusing! The exception to the humor requirement was when I wrote about music. However, the level of bombast, pomposity, and what Nelson George called “unvarnished devotion” with which I write about hip hop music is fundamentally zany, so I give myself a pass on that one.

6) Post from my mobile phone while commuting.

Verdict: Overtaken by events (OBE).

What a geek. I put the use of technology as an end to itself as an equal goal in a list that included “write the truth”.

Well, I have been driving my son to daycare for the last couple years, so if I was still trying to blog while commuting, I’d have been the cause of the WTOP traffic reporter saying “Traffic is snarled on the outer loop in Maryland” on some unfortunate day. So, not much moblogging for now.

Tip: You don’t need to check your email five times a day, including while on the toilet. Cancel that wireless data plan and save your cash money, like I did!

NEW GOALS

1) I am still debating, but instead of shutting down, I have an inclination to post the unfunny stuff. On one hand that could quickly make this blog a bore with no point or focus. On the other hand, my writing could be more positive and truthful to things I want to write and think about. Yes, just like what happened to the Dead Milkmen, Jamie Foxx, and what will inevitably happen Jonathan Coulton, I’m contemplating going serious.

As if I don’t already have a lack of focus with a blog that covers technology, personal journaling, family, relationships, commuting, food, music, politics, bodily fluids, race, sports, entertainment, work, and known unknowns — the one common thread was humor, or at least second-degree attempted humor. Don’t mind that, that was just another preemptive excuse in case it goes horribly wrong.

Dude, I’m not going to stop blogging. Come on, otherwise why would I be writing THIS??? Besides, quitting blogging would be a major setback in my goal to become a P.I.M.P. Huh? You know, a P.I.M.P. A Public Intellectual with Moral Principles. If you don’t know about that, you better ask somebody!!! And, um, that somebody should probably be Michael Eric Dyson, the Jay-Z-quoting, Talib Kweli-citing, Congress-testifying professor who talks faster than John Moschitta Jr.

“It takes a big man to cry, but it takes a bigger man to laugh at that man.”

- Jack Handey

2) I am defecting to Britain!*

*In terms of their standards for period and comma placement in relation to quotation marks, only.

I am so sick of putting the period inside the quotations marks! Gag me with a spoon! It looks, like, so grody!

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