Why do I even bother anymore?

Contravex Printed Books

No, not with life,i with writing! With this – not “thing”, we know those don’t really exist – but with this intention; attention; effort; attempts; essais, if you will. Who, what, where, when, and why?

Who are they for? Are these essays for you, dear reader, to peer into my (peerless) mind? To gaze into the infinite expanse that is this lonesome journey? To wonder how you stack up? To wonder how I stack up? Or even to see how you do/don’t want to turn out when you grow up? But if so, shouldn’t I make it easier for people to find me in this sea of “sites?”ii So maybe it’s all for yours truly then? To compensate for my middling memoryiii by putting digital pen to pixelated paper, ideally in a format that greps and hyperlinks?iv Maybe it’s all just a vanity project? Or a quiet practice of self-discipline with all of the zeal of a private oath? Who says it only has to be one of these.

What are they even? What else but attempts to synthesise the world as I see it in that moment? Some call that art. Some call that willy waving or hot air or bag pumping. Not that I’m concerned with left-brained labels so much as I am with the practice and the craft of writing prose (and a bit of poetry). That’s my joy.

Where is this all going? Damned if I know. I guess we’re all just along for the ride!

When will it end? When I do, most likely. But even then, the words will live on, both digitally and in print (see above).

Why do I even bother anymore? Really, I don’t need the stress of a self-imposed (and really pretty arbitrary) deadline every week. I have plenty on my plate, especially these days, and you’d really think that I could let the Sunday publishing schedule slide once in a while, maybe even let a few months pass by silently just to gain some distance and recharge a bit. And yet I’m determined – come hell or high water – for reasons I can’t quite understand myself.v Maybe because there’s always more to synthesise. Always more to create. Even in the most difficult and chaotic times. Maybe especially so. And who wouldn’t want to document a least a few slivers of the magic and insanity that is our current historical moment? For posterity!

Sitting here at 1.25 mn words over nearly 15(!)vi years of self-publishing, these are at least some of the answers that come to mind. Then again, maybe it all just reduces to my fear of invisibility, dare I say it mortality. That if I didn’t maintain my own blogvii in the 21st century and simply gave into platform content production, that I’d be nothing more than another feudal subject, enslaved to the whims, fancies, and abhorrent algorithms of the Big Tech Massahs.

Nah nah nah…

If I put myself in harm’s way to get my own masters
They’ll put theyself in harm’s way to stay the master
They’ll put theyself in harm’s way ’cause they ain’t askin’
They’ll put theyself in harm’s way, the slaves are massive

 

  1. Though I certainly don’t want to live forever! Unlike the bananas Balajis and kreepy Kurzweils of the world, I don’t aspire to immortality. Quite the opposite, in fact. Living a solid half-century feels like plenty! I’d rather die with dignity thank you very much (an opinion I’ve held for 9 years that has also aged rather nicely if I do say so myself).
  2. What’s the difference between long-form content (ie. essays) and the rest, you ask? Gavin Leech gives us the low-down (archived):

    Sites

    Why prefer the bottom-right? Why not write ephemera, or for oneself only?

    No binding reason: just if you want to do something big; if your ego or your morals demand it; if you want to seed more than a one-time flurry of agreement, disagreement, indifference, impressions.

    It’s not about being pompous or pretending to have timeless wisdom; it’s the attempt to do things that become more and more amazing, which are worth keeping updated, worth living up to.

    Not all egos and morals are created equal, it seems!

  3. My memory really is the most “mid” thing about me. Well, other than my sense of smell. That’s also pretty crap. Which is weird because my nose is enormous.
  4. You may think that hyperlinks are optional for blogging (which is to say thinking) but they’re really not. Hyperlinks are sine qua non. Why? Because hyperlinks beget complexity and complexity begets wisdom, which in turn begets greater consciousness. To quote Tom Morgan from his very in-tune article also published this week (archived):

    The more complex something is, the more conscious it becomes. The more conscious something becomes, the better it gets at extracting energy from its surroundings to combat entropy.

    Vibin’!

  5. The closest I can come to understanding the drive is:

    Black waves,
    Of energy,
    Of time,
    Of attention,
    Of consciousness,
    We are not obligated
    To complete the work,
    But neither are we free
    To desist from it.

  6. The decade mark feels like it a long time ago now… but maybe it’s just the time dilation of COVID playing tricks on my mid-memory!
  7. Which is to say that your favourite Medium or Substack articles are scarcely more eternal than your favourite tweets, perhaps even less so.

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