What if I told you…

It pains me to witness the destructive power of ego as it lays waste to the blogging countryside.  I don't think there's a lot we can do about that, but it's truly shaking my faith in the blogging medium itself.

and…

lately blogs have got me down.

hence…

working on a series of articles that I am tentatively calling The Mental Illnesses of Bloggers.

because…

There seems to be something about the blog format itself that seems to encourage an almost cancerous growth of our egos.

Now what if I told your these words aren’t mine but those of xanga’s blogmaster (CEO-type), John, as shared-widely in two successive articles on Microcontents News? !

I know John has been dealing with quite a few incidents of blogging harassment lately.  I even assisted as an intermediary yesterday between John and a blogger who turned to me seeking some relief from a blogging stalker.  And I imagine, along with the efforts that John has been exerting in such matters comes something of a “siege mentality” with a resultantly less than utopian view of the burgeoning Blogosphere.

But to indict the blog format itself as a predisposition to illness?  

In my own experience, especially of late, I have sat purely inspired, played with words, written first, and blogged only as an afterthought. I simply was too aroused by the muse and oblivious to the “blog format” to permit it to “encourage” me. 

But maybe, from a practical viewpoint, what we all need to do once in a while is say fuck it.  fuck blogging. fuck the whole sense of importance assigned to it.  fuck lifetime membership in a format that encourages ego cancer.  But never forget: bloggers are people, too.  Hence, fuck the format, but power to the peeps.

There.  Now I feel better.  Good enough even to restate my original vision (4/5/2001) here:

Is blogging a new and emerging literary/graphical/(perhaps even audible) art form?  Should it, will it rank among other genre of recognized expression such as the novel, the essay, the poem, the sketch?  Will the “Art of Blogging”  be a credited English course in tomorrow’s universities (surely, the kiss of death) ?

I dare to struggle and say: yes.

Though like a journal in having a timeline that flows like a river carrying fluid thoughts to the sea, the key to this art form (dare I say that?) is its performance: its interactivity.  The best of posts, uncommented, remains the haunting one hand clapping in the forest—which is a rare and ethereal accomplishment: a pure essence of expression, standing by itself, pristine, an incontrovertible entity.  But the highest form of blogging always invites response: the initial post is one hand posed awaiting the second hand, the comment,  which issues the *clap* or sometimes the *smack* or sometimes a chaos of *slaps*, *hugs*, and *gawks*.  So the timeline of expression invites a timeline of response—and thus the blog is woven as a form for all to see.  Hence blogging distinguishes itself as a most genuine form of expression—and is utterly artistic at its height—when it creates community.

 That being said, may I now add: let us all welcome ourselves to this expressive insurgency!