Some days…or weeks or months…I’m ashamed to claim that I am a blogger. I miss posting for days or weeks. And then, when I do, my posts are so random that I cannot in good conscience suggest to a living soul that anything I’ve said is worth reading. I post recipes and short stories and poems and political rants. I post emotional screeds that, while I’m writing them, reveal my emotional depth but later, on reading them, suggest they were written by a teenager who has not yet escaped the scourge of pubescent hormones gone haywire. I post such absurd bullshit that no thinking person would ever accuse me of having thoughts worth serious consideration.
My blog can be—often is—more emotional vomit than carefully crafted thoughts worth thinking, much less reading. Yet I continue to write. I continue to pour my heart and soul onto the ‘page’ in what I can only characterize as a plea for someone, anyone, to read it and tell me what it is I’m trying to do. But I’m losing the energy to do it. I’m losing the will to expose my innumerable flaws to the universe, despite the fact that the universe at large is unaware of what I’ve posted. The fact is, the universe could stumble across it and could discover a lunatic is loose on the interwebs. I might be tracked down and arrested for my incoherent thoughts. My ramblings and rants and screams could land me in a psychiatric ward or, worse, a prison cell.
Yet I keep doing it. I keep writing. I continue to reveal my overabundance of stupidity and emotional baggage to anyone with the misfortune of stumbling upon my words. Either I’m inconsolably stupid or irrevocably dumb. Or both. Or a combination, a stew of inferior intellect and pitiful emotion.
So, with all the reasons not to write, why do I continue to do it? I do it because, goddamn it, one day a gem might spill from my fingers. Or an idea worth sharing might drift from my inadequate mind onto the screen. Or I might actually be growing in worth with each stroke of my fingers on the keyboard so that, one day, what I write might have value to someone who finds a ribbon of hope in what I say.
I know, as do most writers, the likelihood that my words will ever mean anything to anyone is small. I know my words likely will disappear from the internet, from pages, from thoughts, from files, and from memories. But, still, don’t we all have to try to make a difference? Mustn’t we all attempt to use whatever the tools or weapons available to us to encourage this broken world to fix itself and move forward?
I am a skeptic. I don’t hold out much hope for humanity. I think we’re sliding at a much faster pace than anyone might have imagined a year ago toward utter and complete chaos and, ultimately, annihilation. But my skepticism notwithstanding, don’t we have an obligation to try to change course? Should we not do everything in our power to prove this moronic skeptic wrong?
I cry too easily, laugh too often, and express my opinions too freely. None of my failures matter. I am just one man, one man who’s done little to change the world. Even my words fail to spur anyone on to action. I continue to be ashamed that I’ve done nothing. I watch Rome burn and simply wring my hands. I’m ashamed, but what CAN I do? What should we all do?
Phil, I offer my apologies for inserting my drivel into your blogfest. But you ASKED. (I will withdraw upon request. Maybe even absent request.)