notforprophet

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Creation by Merit of Destruction

That’s really what blogging’s about. Exhaling so as to be able to inhale again. Posting new, ever-newer-new and pushing the old into seldom-read archives. Hold your breath too long while breathing and you’ll turn blue. Hold onto "today's" posts too long while blogging and the blog grows moribund.

Yesterday, lovingmy40s was searching for the elements that sustain the soul. And for a writer, she suggested, the words that are writ are paramount in such sustenance. But from a blogging perspective, given the quick-fade dynamic that governs less-than-current content, what’s 'writ' is doomed quite soon to an archive’s dusty death. It’s the act of writing—active writing—that tractor-beams us alive and robust in the now of eternal blogness.

Here was my comment:

Is it what's writ--or the (act of) writing? Is it the timeless preservation of the word--or the fleeting moment of its initial issuance that propels the writer into orgasmic orbit?

If I write a poem in the sand on a beach and watch the waves scour it away, do I celebrate or cry?

And what is the timestamp on a blog but an implicit effacement washed over by the waves of Cron?

In his 1950s book, Captialism, Socialism, and Democracy, the economist Joseph Schumpeter coined the phrase “creative destruction,” describing capitalism as a system “that incessantly revolutionizes the economic structure from within, incessantly destroying the old one, incessantly creating a new one.” The strength of capitalism. in his view, was not in a “rigid pattern of invariant conditions,” but in its “process of creative destruction,” in its continual change.

As a blogonomist, I’m here suggesting that we ought to extend Schumpeter’s vision of creative destruction to explain the dynamics of blogging and old posts’ obsolescence.

There is, however, a countervailing dynamic in the blogosphere that appears to allow for a partial reintroduction of a more conservatory trend. Namely, that not only are blogs creatively destroyed, but it appears, in the long run, so are subscribers, too. New bloggers as new subscribers may constantly infuse one’s readership even as a good chunk of old subscribers get lost (quit blogging, stop actively commenting, or move into different blogging circles). Of course, some ‘old’ subscribers may cling loyally forever. But I’ve seen enough come and go, come and go.... So many, in fact, that it becomes plausible for me to go back to an excellent and still timelessly relevant post of a year or so ago, compare the list of my subscribers who commented then with those who are commenting now, and come to the reasonable conclusion, that re-posting the old post would be seen by most current readers, by merit of their own newness , as a new, creatively destructive issuance.

So though blogging, by its first dynamic, dooms less-than-current content to an archive’s dusty death, a large turnover in readership allows for rebirth through selective archival re-issuances. So, perhaps, what is ‘writ’ and was ‘writ’ can yet celebrate a repetitive ‘blogday’, so to speak, much as we’re all born but once and yet observe ours and others’ re-occurring birthdays quite without ennui.

In fact, it’s not inconceivable that if one could amass 365 ‘excellent, timeless posts’ that one could simply recycle them year upon year, while allowing a largely ever-changing readership to take a ride and catch a thrill on that multi-faceted merry-go-round.

Still..I enjoy the notion of writing poems in the sand, of allowing destruction to provide me with a new opportunity for creation. So while I’ll repost occasionally, and without designating it a 'repost' , just to fill a void (less so in a calendar and more so in my creativity), count mostly on me to die anew each day that I post a blog with thoughts that are newborn yet destined for Doom.