Love And Vexation

It would be good to always be in the mood for this. Writing, I mean, writing for this blog. Every day I think “Today I should write the one for tomorrow”, but I never do. I get up each day befuddled and begin to fumble for a subject. I have a computer full of snippets and claptrap and flapdoodles--why can’t I just use one of those things and be lazy today? Some are too long, some just don’t fit. I might as well just do something whiny, wimpy, and second-rate like this as to try to force something to fit.

I find it interesting how my original web page, Southern Exposure, is falling behind this blog in terms of hits it’s getting. It’s inevitable, of course; this blog updates daily or often, the other only infrequently. There’s something to see here. SE is “prettier”, required more study of HTML, and is the first-born child, but it’s this noisy rat-publication that seems like it’s going to get the attention. Originally, I hoped my friends and acquaintances would tell me how “attractive” the Southern Exposure page looked and generally how clever it was. Some did, some didn’t. Some have said nothing more substantial than “I saw your site”. Some, with the protective barrier of distance and email between us, have said nothing at all. I’ve gone through life being noncommittal about a lot of ordinary things about my friends’ stuff, often declining to tell people how nice their new hat is, often saying little about their new car—things like that. I think, on Southern Exposure, I got my payback for that. Some people, who didn’t know how much it meant to me and who meant no harm at all, left me dangling, twisting like a hanged man in the breeze. It’s a good thing I’m not sensitive. I may be hatefully irritable, but I’m not very sensitive.

Meanwhile, here’s this noisy rat-thing. I’m newly out here in the rigors of cyber-space and irritating some people into rude behavior and being rude to others myself. Doing anything out here is a little like dropping a stone in a pool and watching the circles ripple further and further out. Except here, you have no idea how long the ripples last. Maybe 2 seconds, maybe days or weeks. And you don’t often know if your stone hit somebody in the head and left a bruise or had no impact at all. Still, you can tell that some people you don’t know get irritated or MAD at you. One depends a little on the "kindness of strangers" out here--people who might never really like you in person encourage and praise you and tell you to keep on keeping on. I would suppose that everybody’s looking for Love in all that they do, and the Internet’s no exception, but I’ve realized in the last day or two that I should caution myself more often, more firmly: Only part of all this Love and Vexation online is real, and it’s very hard to know which part.

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY: Glory is fleeting, but obscurity is forever. -- Napoleon Bonaparte