Tuesday, January 20, 2009

my purpose is to keep on dreaming

Another scattered week. Another week of wanting to post and not knowing what to say. I'm grateful that I'm having a hard time writing because I'm happy and busy, instead of because I'm stressed out and sad, but I still want to be writing more. I have a dorky personal goal to post more than 200 times this year, but I want them to be 200 good posts instead of crappy ones. I don't want to write for the sake of a number; I just want to write more.
I put in a link menu to past posts I particularly like this week, and finding those links required me to at least skim through all or most of my archives. It was... interesting. I didn't start at the very beginning, but that's partially because I'm secretly a narcissist and I've read those before--er, several times, I think--in a fit of "what did I sound like in 2003"-ness. (Check out, for example, my first oh-so-optimistic post.) One thing I noticed right away was that my old posts are almost all significantly shorter than what I write now, and most are more about what I was doing than what was outside myself. (There are also an irritatingly large number of posts that go something like this: Wow, I read this awesome book, but I'm not going to give you any juicy quotes or tell you what it's about or anything useful! Ugh.) I had a hard-ish time finding things I liked, that were memorable, from before this year and maybe last year. There are a few exceptions (I particularly like the entry about Audre Lorde and her take on bdsm. Hint: we disagree!), but most of the earlier links are to poems I love, or short movie reviews, or similar things.
I like that my posting style has changed. Interestingly, I think that the reason partially relates back to a blog post I didn't link to (but oh boy, one I get a pretty fair amount of statcounter hits for) which is partially about being able to move outside of yourself when times are good. For most of the time I've had this blog I've been horribly overworked, or incredibly (probably clinically, at times) depressed, or fighting for some sort of stability that I was lacking. I was struggling so hard just to keep moving, to stay alive and on my feet, and I can tell that when I look back at all my entries about nothing much important. Now, when I'm finally happy and finding some sort of balance, I have the time and energy and desire to write about things that matter to me, that take me outside of me. It's a strange form of narcissism that makes you want to show others the things that make you joyful. Maybe that's not the right word anymore.

5 comments:

Lauren Eggert-Crowe said...

I am in the same boat as you about wanting to post but not having time to, or energy, or just *not* posting. I like your goal of 200 posts in 2009 though. I am 75 posts away from hitting my 1,000 posts mark, and I'd like to post more on a whole too. I also want to start a more sort of public, less livejournaly blog at some point. I have been going through all my old archives and tagging them or friends-locking entries that I don't want the wrong people to stumble on. And I'm kind of embarrassed at the tone of the first few years of entries. So zany and inside-jokey, which makes sense because I started livejournal as a facebooky-before-facebook way to interact with my dorm friends. So it might be time to start a blog that serves another purpose. And is google-searchable. :)

That being said, I love your "favorite posts" sidebar. I was also at the Li-Young Lee reading that you went to. That's such a great poem too! I think you and Erica's blogs are my favorites because you balance your personal life with "what's outside yourself" very well, always making things interesting.

a said...

I forgot you were at that reading too! That was very cinematic for something involving poetry; pretty much everybody I'd be interacting with for the next at least six months showed up and mostly sat together. Good times :)
And truly, thank you! What a wonderful thing to say! I try very hard (probably a great deal harder than the situation warrents) to do a good job with this blog, to write well and interestingly and balance all of the varied parts of my life to the extent that I'm capable of doing all of those things, and it made me really happy to read this. Ooh, I'm blushing :)
And yes, write more! I always enjoy your humor and political saavy, and I feel like I haven't read as much of your poetry as I'd like to as of late.

Anonymous said...

All I had to do was google "quotes about sharing joy" to find this very appropriate sentence from who? Audre Lorde, how very!
"The sharing of joy, whether physical, emotional, psychic, or intellectual, forms a bridge between the sharers which can be the basis for understanding much of what is not shared between them, and lessens the threat of their difference."
My take on sharing joy is that it is not so much narcissism as golden generosity in a world that could be devoid of sparkles for people who don't remember to look and it is gleeful conspiracy to experience all the universe offers us.

a said...

I like the idea of a gleeful conspiracy very, very much. And Audre Lorde is amazing! I'm sure there will be much joy-sharing on my part in the future.

Anonymous said...

Another one heard today on sharing joy. This idea was presented in the "zencast" I listened to on the way to work about compassion. I'll recreate it from memory: Where love and happiness meets is where joy is born. (Great, now I have Al Green in my head...)