Tuesday, May 22, 2007
Sic transit gloria bloggi
(With apologies to whoever came up with the Latin phrase "sic transit gloria mundi" ("thus passes the glory of the world").)
Now that the time has come, I can barely make myself type it: This will be my final post.
There, I said it!!
I was slaving away on the computer a few weeks ago when my train of thought was interrupted by a voice in my head that said "You need to focus on expansion, not reduction." It came so out of the blue that it'd have been easy to attribute it to an outside source, but since there wasn't so much as a wisp of smoke rising from any of my bushes I accepted it as a message from my subconscious mind, one so major that it'd come bursting into my consciousness in this unprecedented way. Although I wasn't working on anything blog related when it happened, I knew instantly that it was a reference to how I'd steadily given up everything I used to do with my free time in order to be able to write decent posts, and that... that... I needed to stop blogging and go back to doing all that other stuff. The very idea shocked me to the bone; stop blogging?!! Although not addicted to it (I'd had no problems scaling back from blogging daily to every 2nd, 3rd and finally 4th day), I was still passionate about it, still getting a great deal of satisfaction and enjoyment out of it; how could I QUIT?
So I took a hard look at what blogging was costing me: I'd read through my entire library annually since I was a kid, but I hadn't touched any of those books since this blog got into full swing. I've only read the most recent bunch of Stephen King novels once instead of a dozen times. I stopped reading Dean Koontz entirely, even though a couple of his newer novels have been given to me (they're waiting in the pile with the other unread books). For the 1st time since literally grade school, I'm not reading any women's magazines, because when I didn't renew Cosmo (I'm just too old for it now) I couldn't justify paying for LHJ or Redbook because I wouldn't have time to read them. I have CD's I haven't played in years, not to mention my huge record collection that's still stored at my mother's because we don't have my husband's junk consolidated enough to bring the rest of MY stuff here; he managed that because I've been blogging every spare minute and he won't do a lick of work without me standing over him. I've got a mountain of lovely puzzles and games still sealed in their boxes because I haven't had time to play with them even once, and old favorites covered in dust for the same reason.
My husband brought me home a cool-looking DVD from Blockbuster, but I had to send it back unwatched because it had subtitles and I don't have time to actually look at the TV screen for an entire movie.
I haven't polished my toenails in so long that all my polishes are probably dried up (which is sad for my husband, who has a low-grade fetish for my feet), because if I'm at the computer I'll forget and scrunch my wet toes into the carpet... and I'm only away from the computer to get too little sleep and exercise.
I decided to try writing shorter entries to see if that could fix things; I've been averaging 3 "compose screens" per post rather than the previous 5 since then, although sometimes it made me feel constrained because it didn't always allow me to say all I'd wanted to. It DID free up a non-trivial amount of time for me... and it felt like waking up from a dream. I looked around my house and saw, really SAW, how much just plain maintenance and organization had gone by the wayside: I discovered EIGHTEEN jars of pickles and relish strewn throughout my pantry with expiration dates as far back as 2002, because I've been trusting my husband's opinions as to what we should buy instead of sorting periodically through all the food myself, tossing expired stuff and keeping track of what was in there. My roses had aphids on them. My tires were low on air. Some of my newer collectables hadn't been put on display yet. And on and on and on.
That this could be the result of blogging might be puzzling to those of you who write standard-type blog entries that can be tossed off in 10 minutes, and who therefore don't need to give anything up to blog, but my long, complicated entries take more hours than you'd believe to create, not just because I'm the world's slowest and worst typist but because of the amount of time I have to spend pondering what I want to say and how best to say it, researching to double-check my facts and seek out further info to allow me to cover topics more thoroughly, and doing several rounds of editing (including reading everything out loud to be sure it "sounds like me"), all of it interrupted constantly by the phone, my husband, the critters and the myriad tasks that can't wait for me to finish a paragraph.
I LOVE that process, I love the ideas I come up with, I love my posts, and I love being part of the blogosphere; I'm not tired of it, burned out or out of ideas... it's just reached the point where it's necessary for me to do other things with my free time. I need to get at least an hour more sleep per night, exercise a couple more hours per week, call my friends more often, spend more time with my husband doing something other than discuss topics (and, um, you know), and re-embrace my former pleasures... and maybe discover some new ones.
Believe me when I say that I've thought EXTREMELY hard about all this; I'm not walking away from almost 3.5 years' work on a whim. I tried to come up with a way to blog AND have a full life again, but failed; I'd have to blog once a month or some such nonsense to make it all work, and in the fast-paced blogging world that'd cause me to drop right off everyone's radar, leaving me posting for nothing but a handful of diehards, if that much... and this blog deserves better than to be piddled away into nothingness. I could switch to making short posts, either about nothing much or just skimming over topics rather than plunging into them, but YOU deserve better than that (after all, that's not what you come here for), *I* wouldn't get any joy out of it, and, again, I'd be turning this blog into a shadow of its former self... I refuse to continue posting just to keep the blog going. To blog in a way I can be proud of, with sufficient frequency to have someone still reading what I wrote, I couldn't spend much less time on it than I've been doing, and just adding an extra day or so between posts wouldn't be enough to get me the rest of my life back; to my sorrow, the only choice I have is to quit entirely.
sigh
I had so many things I still wanted to tell you, but in a way I've already said everything that matters; although I've covered a wide range of topics, there are only a few that are really central, that I've been covering from different angles since Day 1... and those are the things that I hope you'll take away from this blog, and keep in mind long after you've forgotten it (and me):
1) As non-coincidentally discussed in my previous post, there's more to the world than what's easily visible or scientifically provable; with a little effort, you can figure out for yourself what some of those things are. Don't take anyone's word for it, work it through it on your own, based on things you can be sure of, so you can be sure of what you're placing your belief in. You don't have to call it religion, spirituality or metaphysics if you're not comfortable with that; think of it as philosophy:
"Philosophy... is a science, and as such has no articles of faith; accordingly, in it nothing can be assumed as existing except what is either positively given empirically, or demonstrated through indubitable conclusions."
-Arthur Schopenhauer
This blog contains the sum total of MY spirituality/philosophy as it has evolved to this point; if you enter "karma" into the search thing at the top of the page, you'll get all the relevant posts. I don't expect you to swallow it whole, since your personal experiences differ from mine and thus your beginning assumptions will differ, but I hope that the way I've reasoned things out will inspire you to do the same with your own data.
2) We need to stop deciding that people are "good," worthy of respect and trust, and that what they do is ok, based on knowing them a long time, loving them, sleeping with them or even sharing DNA with them; instead, judge everyone you know objectively by their actions, and based on that decide who gets to be closer to you... and who you need to kick to the curb.
3) People will periodically do you wrong, because they're evil, mad at you, too depressed to know better, etc; they'll generally give you plenty of red flags before doing so, which in self defense you need to stop discounting out of misguided loyalty and heed. To learn about some of these warning signs, search this blog for "Beware List."
4) American culture has a sick obsession with evil people; we see them as being more fun, exciting, sexy, glamorous and desirable for relationships. If you're tired of being done dirt to by folks like this (and they'll ALWAYS do it to you sooner or later, usually sooner), choose, CHOOSE, to spurn them and pursue nice people instead, however dull they may seem at 1st (remember, YOU will probably seem dull to them as well, but the truth is that neither you nor they are actually dull).
5) Being a good person requires action; if you don't do good deeds, and in particular if you don't defend those who're being attacked, both online and offline, you can NOT call yourself a good person... you're neutral at best.
6) When you see some sort of interpersonal battle going on, analyze what's happening correctly and then take the correct action, especially if you're in a position of authority: There's virtually never any confusion as to who's a victim and who's an attacker, and thus no confusion about who should be blamed and punished (the attacker(s)) and who should be protected and supported (the victim(s))... and it doesn't matter who you know or like better, or how strong the urge is to illogically decide that the victim did something horrible to cause the fight (they didn't) or that the attackers are in the right because there's more of them (they aren't), you should still make the proper judgment and act accordingly.
7) And the #1 concept I hope to pass along; don't just cruise through life mindlessly accepting everything. Constantly question if what you're being told is true, whether the teller is a friend, the media, scientists, whoever; if it isn't, try to discover the truth and share it with others, even if the process is difficult or painful.
"The truth may be puzzling. It may take some work to grapple with. It may be counterintuitive. It may contradict deeply held prejudices. It may not be consonant with what we desperately want to be true. But our preferences do not determine what's true."
-Carl Sagan
Constantly seek out what the REASONS are for why things are a certain way and why we do the things we do, and ask yourself if the status quo is right or wrong... and if the latter, DO something, even if that just means blogging about it to raise awareness.
"We make our world significant by the courage of our questions and by the depth of our answers."
-Carl Sagan
And last, but far from least, I want to express my undying gratitude for every person and service that allowed this blog to be more successful than I could ever have imagined when I 1st decided I wanted my own place in cyberspace to say what was on my mind: Every site, from Blogger on down to the little guys who design sidebar doodads, that provided me with things of value for free over the years-thank you. Every person that took the time to read my posts, liked them enough to come back for more, and especially those that linked to me, submitted me to directories, cast "votes" for me, and said nice things about me on their blogs-THANK YOU!!
I'll always look upon what I accomplished here with great satisfaction; I've done some of the best, deepest, most original thinking of my life for these posts, and one of the biggest thrills of my life has been the knowledge that thousands of people around the world, even from exotic countries that I barely knew anything about before I got online, would read what I wrote and maybe absorb and carry on some of my ideas... I paid a high price for that thrill, but I consider it to have been worth it even though I now have to walk a different path.
It's hard to stop typing, to finish this post and with it my time as a blogger; that'd sound nuts to non-bloggers, but I know that YOU, my blogging brethren, understand. I'll miss you, I'll miss the blogosphere, and I'll always remember you with great affection.
I wonder how long I'll stare at the "Publish Post" button before I click it and end my blogging career.
I wonder how long it'll be before I close the "Publish Status" window.
I wonder how long it'll be before I stop automatically checking on my blog.
I wonder how long it'll be before I stop responding to anything interesting I learn with "that'll make a good blog entry."
I wonder how long it'll be before I go even one day without thinking about my blog.
I wonder what'll be the 1st thing I do after I summon the courage to publish this entry and start my new life.
Ok, here I go...
Goodbye everyone!!
xoxoxoxo
Omni
Now that the time has come, I can barely make myself type it: This will be my final post.
There, I said it!!
I was slaving away on the computer a few weeks ago when my train of thought was interrupted by a voice in my head that said "You need to focus on expansion, not reduction." It came so out of the blue that it'd have been easy to attribute it to an outside source, but since there wasn't so much as a wisp of smoke rising from any of my bushes I accepted it as a message from my subconscious mind, one so major that it'd come bursting into my consciousness in this unprecedented way. Although I wasn't working on anything blog related when it happened, I knew instantly that it was a reference to how I'd steadily given up everything I used to do with my free time in order to be able to write decent posts, and that... that... I needed to stop blogging and go back to doing all that other stuff. The very idea shocked me to the bone; stop blogging?!! Although not addicted to it (I'd had no problems scaling back from blogging daily to every 2nd, 3rd and finally 4th day), I was still passionate about it, still getting a great deal of satisfaction and enjoyment out of it; how could I QUIT?
So I took a hard look at what blogging was costing me: I'd read through my entire library annually since I was a kid, but I hadn't touched any of those books since this blog got into full swing. I've only read the most recent bunch of Stephen King novels once instead of a dozen times. I stopped reading Dean Koontz entirely, even though a couple of his newer novels have been given to me (they're waiting in the pile with the other unread books). For the 1st time since literally grade school, I'm not reading any women's magazines, because when I didn't renew Cosmo (I'm just too old for it now) I couldn't justify paying for LHJ or Redbook because I wouldn't have time to read them. I have CD's I haven't played in years, not to mention my huge record collection that's still stored at my mother's because we don't have my husband's junk consolidated enough to bring the rest of MY stuff here; he managed that because I've been blogging every spare minute and he won't do a lick of work without me standing over him. I've got a mountain of lovely puzzles and games still sealed in their boxes because I haven't had time to play with them even once, and old favorites covered in dust for the same reason.
My husband brought me home a cool-looking DVD from Blockbuster, but I had to send it back unwatched because it had subtitles and I don't have time to actually look at the TV screen for an entire movie.
I haven't polished my toenails in so long that all my polishes are probably dried up (which is sad for my husband, who has a low-grade fetish for my feet), because if I'm at the computer I'll forget and scrunch my wet toes into the carpet... and I'm only away from the computer to get too little sleep and exercise.
I decided to try writing shorter entries to see if that could fix things; I've been averaging 3 "compose screens" per post rather than the previous 5 since then, although sometimes it made me feel constrained because it didn't always allow me to say all I'd wanted to. It DID free up a non-trivial amount of time for me... and it felt like waking up from a dream. I looked around my house and saw, really SAW, how much just plain maintenance and organization had gone by the wayside: I discovered EIGHTEEN jars of pickles and relish strewn throughout my pantry with expiration dates as far back as 2002, because I've been trusting my husband's opinions as to what we should buy instead of sorting periodically through all the food myself, tossing expired stuff and keeping track of what was in there. My roses had aphids on them. My tires were low on air. Some of my newer collectables hadn't been put on display yet. And on and on and on.
That this could be the result of blogging might be puzzling to those of you who write standard-type blog entries that can be tossed off in 10 minutes, and who therefore don't need to give anything up to blog, but my long, complicated entries take more hours than you'd believe to create, not just because I'm the world's slowest and worst typist but because of the amount of time I have to spend pondering what I want to say and how best to say it, researching to double-check my facts and seek out further info to allow me to cover topics more thoroughly, and doing several rounds of editing (including reading everything out loud to be sure it "sounds like me"), all of it interrupted constantly by the phone, my husband, the critters and the myriad tasks that can't wait for me to finish a paragraph.
I LOVE that process, I love the ideas I come up with, I love my posts, and I love being part of the blogosphere; I'm not tired of it, burned out or out of ideas... it's just reached the point where it's necessary for me to do other things with my free time. I need to get at least an hour more sleep per night, exercise a couple more hours per week, call my friends more often, spend more time with my husband doing something other than discuss topics (and, um, you know), and re-embrace my former pleasures... and maybe discover some new ones.
Believe me when I say that I've thought EXTREMELY hard about all this; I'm not walking away from almost 3.5 years' work on a whim. I tried to come up with a way to blog AND have a full life again, but failed; I'd have to blog once a month or some such nonsense to make it all work, and in the fast-paced blogging world that'd cause me to drop right off everyone's radar, leaving me posting for nothing but a handful of diehards, if that much... and this blog deserves better than to be piddled away into nothingness. I could switch to making short posts, either about nothing much or just skimming over topics rather than plunging into them, but YOU deserve better than that (after all, that's not what you come here for), *I* wouldn't get any joy out of it, and, again, I'd be turning this blog into a shadow of its former self... I refuse to continue posting just to keep the blog going. To blog in a way I can be proud of, with sufficient frequency to have someone still reading what I wrote, I couldn't spend much less time on it than I've been doing, and just adding an extra day or so between posts wouldn't be enough to get me the rest of my life back; to my sorrow, the only choice I have is to quit entirely.
sigh
I had so many things I still wanted to tell you, but in a way I've already said everything that matters; although I've covered a wide range of topics, there are only a few that are really central, that I've been covering from different angles since Day 1... and those are the things that I hope you'll take away from this blog, and keep in mind long after you've forgotten it (and me):
1) As non-coincidentally discussed in my previous post, there's more to the world than what's easily visible or scientifically provable; with a little effort, you can figure out for yourself what some of those things are. Don't take anyone's word for it, work it through it on your own, based on things you can be sure of, so you can be sure of what you're placing your belief in. You don't have to call it religion, spirituality or metaphysics if you're not comfortable with that; think of it as philosophy:
"Philosophy... is a science, and as such has no articles of faith; accordingly, in it nothing can be assumed as existing except what is either positively given empirically, or demonstrated through indubitable conclusions."
-Arthur Schopenhauer
This blog contains the sum total of MY spirituality/philosophy as it has evolved to this point; if you enter "karma" into the search thing at the top of the page, you'll get all the relevant posts. I don't expect you to swallow it whole, since your personal experiences differ from mine and thus your beginning assumptions will differ, but I hope that the way I've reasoned things out will inspire you to do the same with your own data.
2) We need to stop deciding that people are "good," worthy of respect and trust, and that what they do is ok, based on knowing them a long time, loving them, sleeping with them or even sharing DNA with them; instead, judge everyone you know objectively by their actions, and based on that decide who gets to be closer to you... and who you need to kick to the curb.
3) People will periodically do you wrong, because they're evil, mad at you, too depressed to know better, etc; they'll generally give you plenty of red flags before doing so, which in self defense you need to stop discounting out of misguided loyalty and heed. To learn about some of these warning signs, search this blog for "Beware List."
4) American culture has a sick obsession with evil people; we see them as being more fun, exciting, sexy, glamorous and desirable for relationships. If you're tired of being done dirt to by folks like this (and they'll ALWAYS do it to you sooner or later, usually sooner), choose, CHOOSE, to spurn them and pursue nice people instead, however dull they may seem at 1st (remember, YOU will probably seem dull to them as well, but the truth is that neither you nor they are actually dull).
5) Being a good person requires action; if you don't do good deeds, and in particular if you don't defend those who're being attacked, both online and offline, you can NOT call yourself a good person... you're neutral at best.
6) When you see some sort of interpersonal battle going on, analyze what's happening correctly and then take the correct action, especially if you're in a position of authority: There's virtually never any confusion as to who's a victim and who's an attacker, and thus no confusion about who should be blamed and punished (the attacker(s)) and who should be protected and supported (the victim(s))... and it doesn't matter who you know or like better, or how strong the urge is to illogically decide that the victim did something horrible to cause the fight (they didn't) or that the attackers are in the right because there's more of them (they aren't), you should still make the proper judgment and act accordingly.
7) And the #1 concept I hope to pass along; don't just cruise through life mindlessly accepting everything. Constantly question if what you're being told is true, whether the teller is a friend, the media, scientists, whoever; if it isn't, try to discover the truth and share it with others, even if the process is difficult or painful.
"The truth may be puzzling. It may take some work to grapple with. It may be counterintuitive. It may contradict deeply held prejudices. It may not be consonant with what we desperately want to be true. But our preferences do not determine what's true."
-Carl Sagan
Constantly seek out what the REASONS are for why things are a certain way and why we do the things we do, and ask yourself if the status quo is right or wrong... and if the latter, DO something, even if that just means blogging about it to raise awareness.
"We make our world significant by the courage of our questions and by the depth of our answers."
-Carl Sagan
And last, but far from least, I want to express my undying gratitude for every person and service that allowed this blog to be more successful than I could ever have imagined when I 1st decided I wanted my own place in cyberspace to say what was on my mind: Every site, from Blogger on down to the little guys who design sidebar doodads, that provided me with things of value for free over the years-thank you. Every person that took the time to read my posts, liked them enough to come back for more, and especially those that linked to me, submitted me to directories, cast "votes" for me, and said nice things about me on their blogs-THANK YOU!!
I'll always look upon what I accomplished here with great satisfaction; I've done some of the best, deepest, most original thinking of my life for these posts, and one of the biggest thrills of my life has been the knowledge that thousands of people around the world, even from exotic countries that I barely knew anything about before I got online, would read what I wrote and maybe absorb and carry on some of my ideas... I paid a high price for that thrill, but I consider it to have been worth it even though I now have to walk a different path.
It's hard to stop typing, to finish this post and with it my time as a blogger; that'd sound nuts to non-bloggers, but I know that YOU, my blogging brethren, understand. I'll miss you, I'll miss the blogosphere, and I'll always remember you with great affection.
I wonder how long I'll stare at the "Publish Post" button before I click it and end my blogging career.
I wonder how long it'll be before I close the "Publish Status" window.
I wonder how long it'll be before I stop automatically checking on my blog.
I wonder how long it'll be before I stop responding to anything interesting I learn with "that'll make a good blog entry."
I wonder how long it'll be before I go even one day without thinking about my blog.
I wonder what'll be the 1st thing I do after I summon the courage to publish this entry and start my new life.
Ok, here I go...
Goodbye everyone!!
xoxoxoxo
Omni
