Blog
This blog
At various times I’ve given myself writing exercises, and this blog has been one of them. The specific practice? Writing economically and beautifully, writing what’s necessary to me.
In that configuration the blog has served its purpose. I also wished for online conversation about the ideas that I was presenting, and I loved the responses that I got, but they were minimal.
Beauty, the body, love, and pleasure remain my subjects, though writing about current political and social issues has an allure. Lately the Dominique Strauss-Kahn arrest fascinates me, as do issues centered on media and privacy, especially the privacy, indeed anonymity, of any average citizen on the planet. Part of my interest in media concerns ways in which the brain changes according to how one habitually uses it–living a one-screen-to-another life profoundly changes human beings. The most exciting material I’ve read about media is Marshall McLuhan’s Understanding Media, which was published in 1964. Much more interesting than recent publications like Hamlet’s Blackberry and The Shallows.
Many of the posts that I deleted I’ve incorporated into other projects.
I want and need to write intimately, and a blog, for me, is an inappropriate place for that. So, we’ll see what happens here as it happens.
I remember when posting one’s art online first became a concern among my circle of friends, most of whom are either artists or great lovers of art or teachers of some kind, all of whom appreciate the value of the artist in society. And we were saying things like ” just let the songs flow out, they will come back to you,” in other words, don’t worry about copyrighting your individual poems or worry that someone will steal an idea from your song before you are published and well-known as a poet or musician. Also, don’t worry about putting your private information out into the world of the Internet, because if you are at peace, you need have nothing to hide. “Just let it go” and “a song doesn’t belong to you anyway”…these were exciting statements to me, and as a musician who had finished school and just put a band together, this openness resonated with feelings of camaraderie I felt as I entered a new, non-academic community of musicians and artists. Something about the Internet reminded me of the freedom I imagine there to have been during the 60s in America, for which I wasn’t yet alive to experience but which has always seemed to me in documentaries as a wonderful time to be making music and go very deep, and make an impact in a quiet way.
The Internet felt “quiet” to me. I liked that. I could roll up to my desk and listen to music or read articles and this was my new private, quiet time. I remember thinking with serious delight, “cut and paste!!!” “cut! and paste!” “think of the poems I can now make with this feature on my word processor!” “what fancy line breaks I am going to save time making…” Then, when I was all done dreaming around on the various screens, I would shut down the computer, and look through my actual books, sometimes reading from them, write things by hand in my journal, pick up my guitar or sit at the piano.
Now that the social connection of the Internet is so continuous, and my feelings about the world are changing, I am rather at odds with my computer. My email connections and links to people’s music that I can listen to with headphones at my desk and all the instantaneous options of sharing have not done much to fuel my creativity, or my real connective feelings to the world…which isn’t at all how I thought things would go, when I was in my early 20s, and all this Internet-ease was being presented to me. Except during vacations I am usually online everyday. I do not read from books every day, nor do I even sing every day, and these two pursuits are at the core of who I am, and what I have to offer the world. Days when I forget to check my mail are blissful.
Yoga has brought me back to the quiet private self.
Meditation gives me instant worldwide connection.
I do find some beautiful clothes online to buy, and that’s nice.
And occasionally I read some blogs that inspire me. Like this one.
Thank you for your experience and insight from the flesh of reality and creativity.
I’m writing, reading books, walking, talking with friends, doing yoga, meditating, cooking, all things that feel very grounding. I remind myself how much I enjoy focus and the daily physical world.