Patricia sends this link about how bloggin’ be good for ya.
Well, let me tell you something, world. Blogging has brought me into deep and relentless contact with me myself and I. And sometimes, even my better side. I had an interesting story to tell when my relationship of 25 years went down in flames, and I really didn’t tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth on the blog. Was it because I’d look like an idiot if I did? Was it because my mother’s eyes would bug out? Was it because the internet is forever and no intelligent person would take me on after a display like that? (Good thing the Luddite doesn’t read this….). Nope, nope, nope. It was because complaining just made it worse. Really. For everybody, including me.
A WHOLE BUNCH OF WHINING HERE DELETED. Of course, some of it was funny, and some was SHOCKING. All of it was mean spirited and and frankly, some of it was creepy. I carefully saved it though, so if you want me to email it to you, hey, no problem.
So I try to write about upbeat stuff, not because my life is a bed of carefully dethorned roses with matching sheer bedcurtains, although from any realistic viewpoint it is, but because I feel better when I do. Blogging made me realize that I was complaining too much about my back, about Paul, about the economy, blah de blah woof woof. Now I comment on it, but I try hard not to whine. With various family members trundling off for surgery and hospital stays and cancer and such like, why try to compete? And I try to find funny, or scary, or inspirational stuff to share with friends, because I’ve learned I don’t like talking about my mental state all the time, it’s fucking boring. Doesn’t it make more sense to be DOING something, like writing a new song, or cooking a meal, or fixing an ongoing issue at work, or calling a friend, or going for a bike ride, or upgrading my software…. posting a video to youtube? Writing a homily? Transferring money into the kids’ accounts for the fun of it? Doing my taxes? Rubbing someone’s neck? Working on a cool business idea? A movie script? A training document? Shouldn’t I talk about what I’m DOING?
The blog is what it is. I say that it’s a vanity blog, mostly written for my mother. I’ve been suicidal twice since I’ve been writing this blog. Can you tell when just from reading it? Could you tell, or not, if I am suicidal now? (Probably not, and I’m not, although now some of you are worried; Jeff knows I’m being a jackass even bringing it up. Candidly, I’m happier than I have been in many years.)
Fortunately, away from public view, there is this marvellous invention called ‘a telephone’. It is THERE that the pain reduction takes place. I am most authentic in person, or on the phone. And when I’m (to quote Northrup Frye) fucked and far from home, I pick up the phone and call people who love me, starting with my mOm and working down the list. The comments section is like a scrim of bubbles on top of a deep ocean of love and connectedness.
Deep resonance here, about the therapeutic value of articulating the life of the mind. I do it with letters and posts, largely to kin. There is a level of reticence in any communication. There is in letters and posts an effort to write for the intended recipient on subjects of mutual interest and that separates them from blogs. But both
represent a sharing of the mental landscape with a few forays into the physical landscape.
Blogs and letters/posts share the characteristic of demanding thoughtfulness – mindfulness – in a way telephone conversation and even in-person conversation do not. Although voice and presence add something, often important, to the interaction, they do not prevent a tactless comment, an unintentionally hurtful phrase, to go forth unedited…
MUCH food for thought in this.