Everything has been nice, and I agree with most of the thoughts people are expressing; but explanations are much too abstract for much too long per post. I think it's especially easy to write that we should dig deep into our souls and connect with people and think and make hydrating, cleansing waves to rush over everyone we meet. It's easy, because we haven't explained what the hell that means. I think more focus, more concreteness in posting would be good. Or at least a combination of both. I think more dialogue is good. Shorter posts would hopefully invite others to comment and provoke the main poster. Writing is about creating knowledge, as you force yourself to complete your ideas floating ghost-like in your brain and body. You draw out the parts necessarily, because you must put them into words to get them out of your head. You have a conversation with yourself as you write the words. You can hear yourself talking to your self, head and fingers. But then you can expand. Talking with someone or interacting with something outside of your own intellect and emotions will shock you into becoming sharper. You must scan your brain for original replies to someone else's comments. You don't have the luxury to pre-plan responses--which happens, often unconsciously, though sometimes intentionally--when only talking to yourself. You don't have the luxury to stay nestled in your baby nest, which only extends so far around you. Someone can drop a bomb and you have to pick out sense from the smoke and debris and rebuild something new in response.
My worry, ultimately, is that all of these posts are pretty similar-seeming, and we might become exhausting to read, exhausting possibilities for ideas and striking images for people to ponder. For us to ponder. Must stand out. Must be readable. Must be profound. Original. Creative. Pressing. Prodding, investigate the thought to know its surface composition, take the scalpel, open it up and look inside. Or else take the scalpel, and carve something masterful into the dull- block-of-wood-thought.
Hopefully I haven't seemed too hypocritical. I do run that risk, I am aware, seeing that I'm not about to comment on anyone else's posts. Tell me if I should just extract myself from this blog altogether for writing such self-aware posts. The other posts (save the dog tag one) don't acknowledge their medium, which is fine, but which is clearly also not what I'm doing, which ruins (perhaps) the blog's style and aim. DIALOGUE!
...dialogue, if you find it worthwhile to engage in it with me, and each other, about small details of life; and from there, we find similarities between things--between what it is to hug your mother, what it is to hug your brother, what it is to hug an acquaintance, what it is to hug your pillow--hopefully better things than that example, though; you find similarities, and you see what is different, and you come up with a thesis, a challenge, a formal thought. You have data to back it up. I gotta be done with this, becoming verbose, becoming diffuse.
With utmost fondness,
Danielle
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Agreed. Let's make every word we use on this good ole blog meaningful. And in that sense, let us use as little words as possible forcing us to chose only those that are truly needed. There's no doubt we've got some deep thinkers and writers here but Danielle is right in saying we're not taking our ideas very far. Our comments should be how to put our ideas into practice.
ReplyDeleteMaybe, upon sitting down to write, we should have a different goal in mind. Maybe we should start with a problem we see in society and discuss what should happen to rid our world of this problem.
We only know a very little bit. We must proceed slowly and cautiously so as not to overlook something or come to the wrong conclusion. With all our lights combined let's progress prudently, starting with the simple truths of life, as we gain a more complete understanding of our world, and therefore what needs to happen for us to make it better.
To be honest, I'm going to keep doing what I've been doing. I think it is powerful and thoughtful while also making simple suggestions as to how to start to go about making changes. If you disagree, that's fine, but I must continue in the direction that I've started. Nobody comments on my stuff and I am fine with that, but I am not going to break my ideas down further than I have in order to make them less wordy. If people don't want to take the time to read it, that's fine. I have proof that people are reading it, though, and that is, at this point at least, pretty cool as my goal is to inspire hope for change.
ReplyDeleteinspiring hope for change is good, actually figuring out ways to institute it, I feel, is better.
ReplyDeleteInstitutions may be one of the problems with society. We don't need institutions telling us what to do. We need our souls to guide us. Constantly relying on institutions is only causing more complacency as far as I can tell. We need strong individuals being themselves and encouraging others to be strong individuals as well.
ReplyDeletefacilitate might be a better word for institute there. I don't mean to say create institutions, I mean to say actually finding the mechanisms that will bring about the changes we have been abstractly writing about. I partially agree with the institutions being a problem as it does lull people into the "masses" and therefore also into not thinking for themselves.
ReplyDeleteright people become complacent because the systems currently installed in our society function to an some extent. They're there, doing a certain job that we've been made accustomed to since birth. People don't like change people like consistency. Even if they're not all that happy with it their lazy complacency gets the best of them.
We do need some order though. There are way too many temptations in the faces of way too many weak minded/hearted individuals. YOu're right, we need to be strong individuals but simultaneously have a strong sense of the connection we have to all our brothers and sisters here on Earth.