The Easy Way

For some time now I have been taking the easy way out. Take, for example, this blog. Instead of writing pieces about world events, about matters that take up my thoughts and most likely yours, trying to make sense of them and perhaps adding whatever I can to them, I have made entries that are concerned with one thing only: me.

The pitfalls of blogging are many but the basic sin is the center of each. When a person makes an entry the subject nearly always is them. How they are feeling that day or what happened to them on the way to the store, or why they love the president. Whether they approach the blog as a journal to write about their own lives and goings on, or try and use it as a platform to put forth their thoughts and feelings about some matter that is important to them the basic problem remains the same. Who is going to read this?

Writing without the reader in mind seems to be (and here again we return the focus onto me) my biggest complaint about modern literature. The correct term, I believe, is post-modern literature, but to be honest I am not sure if that is entirely correct either. Let me call them books where the author has decided that having a narrative is less important than what they have to say. 

I am presently reading If on a Winter's Night a Traveler, by Italo Calvino and reading this book is very similar to reading blogs. This work came toward the end of Calvino's life and it is clearly the work of someone who had spent a lifetime writing and thinking about writing. If there is a story being told here it is of writing. The story of the process, the concerns, possible thoughts and philosophy's as well as the relationship the writer can have with the reader. 

The problem I have with this book and with blogging and my own writing at the moment (again this bounces back to me) is that what is written isn't really that interesting or involving or entertaining. It is an extremely self-conscious work that is designed to continually wrench the reader from the narrative so that they may be addressed directly in order that they can better understand what this book aims to do and how it aims to do it. My purpose in mentioning this work is not to attempt a review nor is it to damn it for being what it is. My purpose is to make a simple little point which is this: not so long ago no one was writing such works, whether in the form of a novel or story or letter.

I have no idea why all this changed. I do not know if the forms of transmitting information and their increased speed and range played a role in how people saw themselves and therefore shaped the way they wrote. What I do know is that reading Dickens or Tolstoy or any other writer whose works come before this change is an entirely different and more pleasurable experience. The reason seems simple enough: self-consciousness removes that fourth wall and reminds the reader that what they are experiencing is false.

That is not to say that this cannot be interesting but I believe it is an entirely different animal whose value is not necesarily large.

So this inevitably brings me back to the beginning and to, sadly, myself. What is this worth of this blog and these writings? Should anyone who does not know me care about what is written here and take the trouble to read it? I cannot find a convincing argument in my favor, yet, I know I will continue to post here. Why? It would be dishonest to say that I feel this may benefit anyone other than myself. I know that posting here is a good exercise for me.

So what is the point of all this then? The point of this post is, as most often is the case, for me to work out what I really think about a particular matter. The conclusion? I am going to post from now on without worry about who is reading this or whether they find it important and because of this I am going to try and find the freedom to write in an open, honest manner about those things which interest me most and which I think are most worthy of being written about.