Monday, September 19, 2005

So, what do we think? Is blogging meant to say something of importance that has been burning within? Or really just to post pictures of your children so you can stop clogging up your relatives' and friends' emails? Or a mixture of both? Or maybe just a whine page... I think that mine will be for insomnia. I often wake up two or three times in the night... thinking. There are times when the brain beast can't be shut up... or sometimes its just the little one wanting nursed or me out of the way (yes, shocking, we sleep with our baby. People have done it for thousands of years, I can't understand why now its controversial... this is a whole other subject to be blogged about at some later date).

But I have been musing on why blog. And it occurs to me that it is just another way to feel important. OK, hackles down, I mean that in the best possible way. We all should feel important but doesn't it seems as if most of us may not anymore? Fifty years ago, how many really wanted to be famous? Now, doesn't everyone? Or seems like. Its no longer enough to be famous in your own life. No, for it really to count, one must be nationally recognized! On TV, in the paper is not even enough anymore!, in People Magazine! When did we all get so out of sorts on this issue? And what is ironic is that, most people, if they could really live the life of someone famous would probably not want it.

And it also occured to me, as I was thinking about this, that the only significant difference between being famous and now, say for instance for me, would be that there would be more insincere people in my life. If there was financial prosperity that went along with the fame I would be doing the exact same things, but in better clothes. I'd still have the same family, the same friends (I wouldn't trade the ones I got for none others!), the same kids, the same weight probably, the same face... and on and on... Same you, different stuff.

So, my only conclusion can be that in our individual lives we feel insignificant, a hole, that we feel fame - adulation from somewhere else - would fill. Its sad. Maybe we are too dispersed. I met James Howard Kunstler (http://www.kunstler.com/) when I was going to graduate school in SDSU, when I worked as the Speaker Coordinator on a conference held by the International Center for Communications housed on that campus. He was the keynote speaker and blew the audience away... not in the way they would have liked, 'they' being a bunch of conservative businessmen and women. James is the sort of anti-businessman. Not that he wants there not to be any, but that he doesn't believe the paradigm can last. We are too far afield from what is important. I certainly feel disjointed being so far away from most of my friends. But also things that we as humans cling to but may not quite consciously realize, like a Whole Foods, a park, a neighborhood street with houses you like to look at, a favorite burrito place. Life used to be encased in a little community and that was where you found your importance, your feelings of belonging and self-worth. Now that we are so seperated we cling to images and ideas that stir us, like Oh, wouldn't it be great to win the lottery and buy a big house. Could it just be possible that what we really all want, what we really all need, is a little company now and then?

2 comments:

demondoll said...

Gotta say, The Boy slept w/us as long as he nursed. How else was I going to get any sleep? Family beds and the like are only scandalous for people who are insecure about their own choices.
I've been thinking about blogs, too. Journals to share??? What a strange thing. But now I see it as another way to reconnect w/ people I love but no longer see. Especially since I'm so bad at long-distant calling (sorry)...
Whatever the reason, it's good to read your deal!

Anonymous said...

Perhaps the need for fame is a direct result of the materialistic need. Of course, to be a successful materialist, you must have people notice you have all these fine "things". Fame will give you a stage to exhibit your things, or if you don't have things, you may exhibit that as well. Fame is also a materialist path, for some it is the next step after you have all the things that money can buy, Donald Trump comes to mind. This need is also a result of our freedoms. We are lead to believe, today more than ever, that we can be anything, have anything. It is a grand ideal, but not a reality. Emotional and intellectual maturity should eventually kick in but for some reason this has not happened to far too many. Will the tide turn, will we learn what is important, did 9/11 give us a clue, Katrina show us how immune we've become to our fellow humans? Answers?