(PS added below) Lately I’ve been having a problem with citzenship. Blog citizenship, that is. The duties of posting entries here, reading other blogs, pointing to things of interest here, commenting on other blogs, not to mention checking back later to see how the conversation is going: the rewards of all this business — busy-ness — are shapeshifting in front of my eyes, and it’s difficult just now to feel right about them, so I’ve ignored them. In other words, I’m having a slight hiccup in the general area of being an aware citizen of the blogworld, regardless how one’s personal sphere is defined. My circles aren’t going to be your circles, but somehow they all overlap just a tad, and none of us, really, is Alexander with the right to cast bullying shadows on all those archimedian hinges in the spheres of world, thought, mind… Yet somehow, that bastard Alexander is standing just there, casting shadows with his huge pragmatic materiality.
I am left leverless, that stick in my hand is just about right for bashing myself on the head, but it’s nothing to unhinge a world with.
Through all this, it has been a breathtaking spring: we’ve had magnolia blooms the size of elephants’ ears, but coloured like a diner’s neon, and scents enough from all the stuff in bloom — early?, on time? — to last a thousand cubicle-aired noses for a lifetime of diminishing aesthetic returns.
The other day I ran into a friend whose Montreal apartment I had the good fortune to share decades ago. He sometimes gets annoyed with Victoria, and so he wanted to know whether I’m still glad I came back here. But I’m a simple-minded sucker for flowers, growing stuff, and temperate weather. And I live so much of my life online, vicariously, on various blogs and newsletters and sites and emails to people I know or don’t know, that it really doesn’t matter to me if I’m in some glam locale or if I’m wherever I am. For real life, all, I sometimes think, I care about is good weather. And we’ve got that here in spades.
The drawback is that nothing stops growing, even if it’s all regressive. The real world doesn’t grow into the virtual one without a fight, though. Bullying shadows develop a heft and substance worthy of a conqueror, and other spheres get neglected. PS: I have my Romans and Greeks mixed up. Alexander had nothing to do with Archimedes’s disturbed circles. That was wrong — Archimedes was killed by a Roman soldier. Sorry. Kind of destroys the metaphor I had, except that Marcellus (the Roman general) was also conquering and bullying…. But while everyone has heard of Alexander, who knows from Marcellus?
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I am intensely curious as to what is unwritten in this writing of yours.
My dear, there are no blogging duties, which implies what you ought to be doing rather than what you want to be doing. So enjoy the flowers, ignore the shadows.
Shelley’s is a good point — one I need remember as well. Yule, enjoy the flowers and tell Alexander to mind his business. And yet, I know the feeling, that sense of busy-ness when it comes to the perceived need to post something — anything. I had my own panic post just the other day … with the lame title of “just checking in.” These last few days I have had some other concerns as well, and not only do they not make for good blogging material (sorry for this convoluted construction), but also, they need to spend some time in the shadows, growing into expression slowly … something that goes against the grain of the insta-post….
So you do what you need to do Yule, because, as Shelley pointed out, there is no book of rules for citizenship in blogdom — though there may be a set of ethics, but that’s a different discussion!
Shelley and Maria, you’re right. It should be chill-out time around here. Indeed. I’m just so pissed off at myself because I can’t keep up. With myself, with others. There’s so much bursting at the seams, it’s a good trip most of the time, but sometimes it looks like it will just go beyond, a couple of times over.
Actually, something illuminating (to me anyway) did occur in the wake of this latest kvetch. I spend a terrific amount of time and energy learning about and dealing with asynchronicity. It’s what my kids are …um, imbued?, afflicted?, gifted? with, which is why they homeschool/ distance ed school (and thank god we’re in BC because we have some great options here, part of the public school system). Asynchronicity: “.. is asynchronous development in which advanced cognitive abilities and heightened intensity combine to create inner experiences and awareness that are qualitatively different from the norm.”
And while I know that I’m implicated in this journey, I often forget that some (haha) of my research reflects on me, too. 180 and up is profound, say some sites. Bullshit, that’s normal here. Asynchronicity — another word, s’far as I can tell, for resistance: resistance to co-optation, to bloody everything. And because of this, it’s imperative that you don’t get ground underheel just because you’re different. Anyway, I have to learn about this stuff because of the kids — and it turns into a gut-wrenching reconstruction of biography for me every other fucking day — it’s a curse and a blessing in one. Things become clearer all of a sudden, but also trickier. It’s a trip, totally.
So, the illuminating thing was to realise that asynchronicity applies personally, too. I already knew that long ago (durr, I’m not totally stupid), but it’s always so refreshing to get knowledge slapped in the face. Mr. Bear takes a freshly plucked salmon out of stream and whacks it aboot a bit.
Ah, asynchronicity: that refreshing knock on the head, brought to you by Erewhon Corporation…. I love BC, I love Vancouver Island, I even love Victoria. Only here could I feel quite this at home. Here, and a good DSL connection to stay in touch with all of you lunatics (er, sorry, asynchronous types) out there, elsewhere. Love is all there is. I love you. Peace!
(Stage off: “Hmm, you know, she only used that drug once. Strange, such a vehement after-effect.” “Yes, it seems to have had a profound effect…” “Tee-hee, it never wore off, sweeetie!”)
btw, 1, if you’ve clicked through this far, you need to educate yourself about asynchronicity, you really do. And 2, what I wanted to say was that I do feel badly about starting conversations and not staying with them, or having someone really special comment and not acknowledging it (eg., I had a great comment from the man who looks after Lanier Phillips). That sort of thing is shoddy of me, and I feel less than good about it. At the same time, I see how it’s a misplaced attention to detail and to wanting to be perfect, and how it’s not something that helps, but hinders. When you’ve had an authoritarian upbringing, however, bad manners seems like the end of the world, even though the entire rearing was designed to turn you into a prick. Or a self-hating ____ (fill in the blank).
The myth that may be appropriate is that Alexander thought that the way to solve the problem of the Gordian Knot was to take his sword and cut it. A symmetrical solution where the victor gets to rule the world if you believe in that kind of thing.
Think of that when you feel you need to cut things cleanly as you have been brought up to do. So much that is beautiful has been created by slobs and inepts. So much that is evil has been wrought by those who have a mind for order.
“Had we but world enough, and time,
This coyness, Lady, were no crime. . .”
Andrew Marvell (AFAIK)
Asynchronous development and Andrew Marvell all in one frickin’ comments box. Amazing.
Hmm. Can you have asynchronous synchronicities? Actually, blogging seems to lend itself to those — which is why, I think, it seems so muddled, but it’s really not. ‘Know what I mean?
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