I look upon blogging as a way to connect, but not as a way to broadcast my own personal life. It is a small portal through which ideas and thoughts about life can pass between good people, and that’s what I want it to be. I’ve long been a proponent of the wise saying of a famous wizard: “Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.” I am a writer; my self is in my writings, but my writings are not the sum of my self. If my thoughts are of value, then I’m humbled and honored that folks would give me their time. But I have every intention of remaining behind the curtain. The world needs more Robert Redfords and Meryl Streeps and fewer Britney Spears and J-Lo’s. In terms of celebrity status, I am but a mouse among such elephants, but the issue is the same: our gift is what we create, not the lives we live.
via Slogging and blogging, and a vote for Robert Redford over Britney Spears « Kent Nerburn.
As someone who likes to write things, this post I just discovered, written by the extraordinary Kent Nerburn, really struck a chord with me.
For so many bloggers, the questions of what to write and how much of yourself to include in your musings is a well-trodden one. Is it better to be intimate and casual, or formal and well-articulated? Should I talk about my life and the events that go on in it, or more about my thoughts and ponderings on the world around me?
I’m still struggling to find a balance between the two. While I like to include a certain amount of myself as a person (for me, that’s what enables one to relate to a blog and blogger), I also don’t wish for the space I have created to become one in which I talk all about myself (a second Facebook, so to speak). Ultimately, I want to offer food for thought. I want to watch what goes on in my life, look at the things around me, talk to the people that come and go through it and think. After all of this, I write. Of course, there are moments when I need to vent, when I wish to share a really special moment in my life, or just take a minute to cherish the smaller, often overlooked, things in life. This blog offers me a space to practice the art of writing, and to experiment.
Nerburn also comments on email and the internet, and how it is creating an artificial and less intimate form of human interaction:
You must remember that there is a false, or, at least, artificial, intimacy created by email and the internet. Who among us has not gotten into trouble by writing too much, or too quickly, or with too much emotion when something or someone raised our hackles or fantasies? This sort of immediate response potential takes away the reflective, considered nature of a well-thought out letter, and it takes away the real, human interaction of either a phone call or, better yet, a face-to-face meeting.
A friend of mine who is the best businessman I know simply will not use email and eschews phone calls in favor of direct meetings. It seems like a throwback way to do business, but I see the wisdom of his approach.
Last year, I actually did a unit discussing communication (oh the irony), and it was really interesting to think about the different connotations and uses people place upon the array of mediums available to us. My tutor asked the class a number of questions, including whether they prefer texting or calling, facebooking or emailing etc. Listening to their answers, the large assortment of possibilities and interpretations that surround different forms of communication became clear to me. Some thought email was outdated. Others admitted that, while they preferred voice calls with some of their contacts, for others they opted for text messages. Because of our seemingly constant availability and contact with the world through all of these devices, it proves to be somewhat hard to escape. How many times have you been reprimanded for not answering the phone when work comes a-calling?
As a last thought, I have read that some people who disable their account on the global medium of Facebook for whatever reason find that they become somewhat cut off from the world surrounding them. Because society has become so dependent on the medium, it proves difficult to live and communicate without it. Rather than Facebook being a tool for society, it has, in a way, become a society.
Thoughts?
Life is the Bubbles 
