The Canard in the Coal Mine
Jul. 29th, 2008 05:31 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
penfield"People are strange
When you're a stranger
Faces look ugly
When you're alone
Women seem wicked
When you're unwanted
Streets are uneven
When you're down."
- Jim Morrison/The Doors, "People Are Strange"
To the casual reader, this daily journal must seem like a bit of a lark, a trifle of mismatched ideas and belabored phrases. I suppose that's mostly true, though I have inadvertently discovered some substantial personal value in it. I've made/kept friends, developed some productive habits and revealed certain truths about myself that surprised even me.
But there is also a sinister side to this project, endemic not only to this particular medium and the "blogosphere" (ugh) but to our entire Reality Society*: it pretends to be something different than what it really is, and is therefore fundamentally dishonest.
*By which I mean the common yearning for authenticity and the simultaneous, implicit disregard of the observer effect that effectively renders the authentic inauthentic. Call it the The Real World Principle, after the iconic MTV program in which purportedly "real" (i.e., "normal," or at least "amateur") individuals are observed doing salacious and exciting things that the show's audience would never really do. Author Chuck Klosterman, in his book Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs: A Low Culture Manifesto, refers to our cultural consumption of this material as "postmodernism ... any art that is conscious of the fact that it is, in fact, art;" I call it escapist delusion. We could get into a semantic argument about whether the The Real World Principle truly consists of "pretending" to be anything -- is a pose just a pose, or is it product placement? -- but in any case, the end result is invariably disappointing.
As it relates to this journal, there are essential dichotomies that persistently challenge my editorial voice: My thoughts as they are laid out on this page are both personal and impersonal, private and public, confessional yet standoffish.
In writing about all sorts of things in this space, I have endeavored to commit my thought process to the page honestly, because I think that's when things get really interesting. At the same time, though, I am bound by privacy, modesty and decency -- my own, and others' -- to withhold certain things. These two desires work at cross-purposes and can be extremely frustrating.
It is particularly bothersome when I have a lot of deep stuff to say, or sad stuff, or angry stuff that can't be redirected toward my helpless coworkers. It bothers me not only because I think it's damn fascinating stuff, but also because this page is one of the few places where I can unpack, deconstruct, analyze, reconstruct and file away my anxieties. But this impulse is muted by self-censorship, which is worse than regular censorship because you are both the denier and the denied, the guard and the prisoner.
I mention all this not as a cry for help but as a kind of disclaimer. Don't think that everything you're reading here is the whole story. There is more in Heaven and Earth than is dreamt of in my philosophy.
Think of me as cappuccino: this journal is the milky foam on the surface, the fun and silly part of the drink. Underneath it, though, is a scalding hot beverage. Sometimes I am weak, and sometimes I come on too strong. My goal is to comfort you, not to burn you, so be careful. Sometimes I take a spill and end up all over the place. Sorry about that. Let's hope there are no permanent stains.
For those of you still drinking, thank you for making me a part of your day.
When you're a stranger
Faces look ugly
When you're alone
Women seem wicked
When you're unwanted
Streets are uneven
When you're down."
- Jim Morrison/The Doors, "People Are Strange"
To the casual reader, this daily journal must seem like a bit of a lark, a trifle of mismatched ideas and belabored phrases. I suppose that's mostly true, though I have inadvertently discovered some substantial personal value in it. I've made/kept friends, developed some productive habits and revealed certain truths about myself that surprised even me.
But there is also a sinister side to this project, endemic not only to this particular medium and the "blogosphere" (ugh) but to our entire Reality Society*: it pretends to be something different than what it really is, and is therefore fundamentally dishonest.
*By which I mean the common yearning for authenticity and the simultaneous, implicit disregard of the observer effect that effectively renders the authentic inauthentic. Call it the The Real World Principle, after the iconic MTV program in which purportedly "real" (i.e., "normal," or at least "amateur") individuals are observed doing salacious and exciting things that the show's audience would never really do. Author Chuck Klosterman, in his book Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs: A Low Culture Manifesto, refers to our cultural consumption of this material as "postmodernism ... any art that is conscious of the fact that it is, in fact, art;" I call it escapist delusion. We could get into a semantic argument about whether the The Real World Principle truly consists of "pretending" to be anything -- is a pose just a pose, or is it product placement? -- but in any case, the end result is invariably disappointing.
As it relates to this journal, there are essential dichotomies that persistently challenge my editorial voice: My thoughts as they are laid out on this page are both personal and impersonal, private and public, confessional yet standoffish.
In writing about all sorts of things in this space, I have endeavored to commit my thought process to the page honestly, because I think that's when things get really interesting. At the same time, though, I am bound by privacy, modesty and decency -- my own, and others' -- to withhold certain things. These two desires work at cross-purposes and can be extremely frustrating.
It is particularly bothersome when I have a lot of deep stuff to say, or sad stuff, or angry stuff that can't be redirected toward my helpless coworkers. It bothers me not only because I think it's damn fascinating stuff, but also because this page is one of the few places where I can unpack, deconstruct, analyze, reconstruct and file away my anxieties. But this impulse is muted by self-censorship, which is worse than regular censorship because you are both the denier and the denied, the guard and the prisoner.
I mention all this not as a cry for help but as a kind of disclaimer. Don't think that everything you're reading here is the whole story. There is more in Heaven and Earth than is dreamt of in my philosophy.
Think of me as cappuccino: this journal is the milky foam on the surface, the fun and silly part of the drink. Underneath it, though, is a scalding hot beverage. Sometimes I am weak, and sometimes I come on too strong. My goal is to comfort you, not to burn you, so be careful. Sometimes I take a spill and end up all over the place. Sorry about that. Let's hope there are no permanent stains.
For those of you still drinking, thank you for making me a part of your day.
