10:14 am - Str-emo of consciousness.
If anyone's wondered why I haven't been updating so much, I am here to explain. It's because I've become less and less fond of emo entries and how-my-day-was entries. There doesn't seem to be much point to doing them; they're not interesting to anyone. I know at least one person will contest that, either out of politeness or whatever. But what's uncontestable is that they're not as interesting as what I could be writing.
So, that's why I've been quiet for a while, and also why I'm transitioning more to a blog register than a "Wah my life sucks!" personal-journal register. I've considered moving off of livejournal completely and doing a 'serious' blog, but then I realised no-one would read it, no matter how interesting it was. Does anyone even read these? Hello? STOP PLAYING WITH YOUR SCROLL WHEEL!
The reason for this change is somewhat personal: I never have thought I was 'supercool', but for a while there that's what I was trying (unsuccessfully) to be. I can't pinpoint exactly why, but that's changed now. I have embraced my true nature and thus come into my TRU P0W4H! That is to say: I'm weird, and I'm a bit of a geek, and I'm entirely comfortable with that.
You're probably well aware that this doesn't represent a huge change, though. Maybe that's the way you always saw me; the only thing that's really changed is my perception of myself. At the risk of sounding pretentious, it's really been quite liberating.
Ah yes, the risk of sounding pretentious, the risk of sounding stupid, the risk of sounding some way I don't want to sound. I guess another thing that's changed is that those risks have started to bother me less and less. I'm using the Preview button more, but only to check that the layout looks right; I've stopped checking the content (other than for spelling and punctuation), and stopped hesitating before committing these posts to public scrutiny. Obviously I still try not to outright offend anyone, but in a perverse way I want to be wrong sometimes. I'd rather people disagree with me (and say so) because that opens the gates for dialogue, which I love. The things I write about here, I write about not because I want to talk about them, but because I want to discuss them. That said, I'm well aware that some of the things I write about are irrelevant to 100% of the people likely to read them, so I can't complain about not discussing them.
This is the core of the matter: it's why I write the way I do, and it's probably the thing that attracts me most to Second Life. Those of you who remember my oooold old entries (those of you who don't: please don't go and look - they're embarrassing >.<) will remember that my mother couldn't understand how I was capable of spending so much time online. I think I always understood the distinction between the way she sees the internet and the way I see it, but I've only recently been able to articulate it. She sees 'using the internet' as a passive activity; something like consulting an encyclopaedia. I see that as a pretty narrow view. Using the internet to me comes into its real power as an active, participatory medium. I know I'm probably preaching to the choir with that profundity ("OMG All this time I've been looking at the screen, you mean I can press the keyboard and make things appear on the internets too?!?!1") but it's worth articulating.
The idea of 'participatory media' is a relatively new one. It's not that new - the idea was in its early infancy as my parents were - but there's a line of thought that suggests most of the young are inherently neophiles while the older generations (for the most part) inherently become neophobes. (I should point out that Robert Anton Wilson, most commonly credited with the terms, made the distinction of these two personality types, but never connected it to age. And just as well, since it's perfectly possible and not even all that unlikely to have 70-year-old neophiles and 16-year-old neophobes, but I'm twisting it a bit to fit in with the idea that people tend to be comfortable with the things with which they grow up, and less comfortable with the things that are introduced after they reach adulthood.) The only way for a neophobe to make sense of something new that is all-pervasive (i.e. not easily ignorable) is to analogise it with something familiar: and all the analogies we have for the internet do a very poor job of explaining what it is.
I may pick up on this subject again in the future, but another reason I suspect no-one reads these things is that I write too damn much, so I'll stop here :P
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