And So It Begins ...

We all have one foot in where we came from and one in where we are.  As the two places diverge, the split intensifies and our mental hamstrings start to burn.  Needless to say, the older you get, the greater the disconnect between the world in which your values, tastes and frames of reference were shaped -- and whatever this absurd thing is that we call "the present."

There was a time when thoughtful people carried around something they called a "commonplace book."  Passages from books, sketches, random thoughts, quotations -- these were thought to be a big part of what made a person what he was.  The commonplace book was not intended as a form of public discourse, but it did sometimes end up being just that, for example when someone died and their commonplace books turned up in someone's inheritance or in a library collection or in an attic.

The blog can serve many purposes, and most of them don't really interest me, at least not at the moment.  But there is no question that I miss the opportunity for regular conversation, debate and communal mulling.  Nor is there any question that the world I seem to inhabit now, in my 54th year, offers fewer occasions for these things.  There seems to be a lot more access to information but a lot less intelligent conversation.

Who knows, maybe this nugget of modern technology has something to offer in this vein.  I guess there will always be chuckleheads in the world, and blogs certainly don't make us smarter or more interesting.  But I'm willing to throw a few artifacts -- verbal, aural, visual -- at the wall and see what sticks.