Nine and a half blogs

I blog therefore I am, said the existential blogger. But maybe the value of this blog, for me at least, is to read it years from now and reflect at how things have changed. It is a snapshot of my thinking as opposed to my image. Right. Um, blogging along now, we go to the next topic. I don't have any topics in my mind right now. I'm supposed to just write 500 words a day and get it over with. And not read it again for, like, ten years or something.

Or maybe it would be better if I had several different blogs to address seven different themes that I'd like to write about. Maybe having just one blog is not only not enough; it actually cripples my very attempt at blogging. I'm beginning to believe that the more a blog is narrow and specific, the more useful it is to its reader. So, what topics should I choose? And how specific should they be? Top on the list, of course, would be the pursuit and building of the Realistic Utopia (whatever that turns out to be).

Clearly, there is a sense that only now are we on the verge of a 'knowledge' revolution. The 'information' revolution is so yesterday. Its the transfer of knowledge that will bring real and tremendous change to our lives, individually as well as collectively. Having all the information in the world at (literally) the tip of my fingers amounts to nothing if I don't know how to make use of it.

Bloggers block?

Is there a difference between writing and blogging? What would blogging look like ten years from now? How will it evolve? If a blogger falls down in a forest and nobody reads about him, did it really happen? Am I just writing questions at random? Am I trying to be funny? Speaking of funny; Dave Barry is finally retiring (sort of) as of next Saturday. Its hard to believe that, in a country of 300 million (and a world of 500 million English speakers), nobody can compete with this guy. Like Johnny Carson, he is very unique, indeed. So now is the time for all those Dave Barry wanabes to shoot for this wide open vacancy.

The spell checker is beginning to get on my nerves. It's ironic enough not to recognize the words blog, blogger, blogging and blogged, but it also keeps ignoring to 'learn' them.

In The Land of Blogs

Why would I want to blog? Some do it as another way of writing their diaries: today I did this and did that, this happened to me and so on, blah blah. Others use it as a means of giving their point of views to the world freely. They might try to convince readers of their way of thinking. Others have real and useful knowledge that they want to pass along. Some bloggers try to utilize blogging to attract like-minded people and form a community. Still others don't really know why they're doing it.

Me? I think I fall into the last category. But at least I believe my subconscious knows what's really going on, and that's enough for me. Perhaps I want to articulate. There's a lot of stuff on my mind that I want to get out so that I can sort it out, put it somewhere for future reference, and free the hard disk in my brain. And who knows, maybe someday I (or whoever) might make something useful out of it. Just what the world urgently needs today: a lazy procrastinating semi-philosopher.

About two years ago I began writing at the rate of 500 words per day after reading a book by Roberta Bryant called "Anybody Can Write". The idea was to just write anything that comes to mind, but to do it consistently on a daily basis. I wrote quite a lot and surprised myself. Then after the twelfth day I did something that, in retrospect, I should've postponed indefinitely: I read what I actually wrote. Then I stopped cold. The only other time I picked up the writing habit was when emailing people I don't really know. Of course I had to first find the willing recipients, start some kind of conversation and send and receive until one of us misses a beat; gets lazier ever after; feels guilty and/or awful about it and just terminates the thing.

Then along came blogging. It's better, and more challenging, than just writing to myself on my computer. And, unlike emailing, there's no waiting for a reply before I proceed or jump into another topic. As I've stated earlier, its the rewriting that I hate most. But by just blogging along on a daily basis, I don't really have to worry about redoing anything anytime soon. If someday I look back at all my writings and think that something might be worthy of editing then I can do it with no pressure or time constraint.

Who Moved My Ass?

Forget about your cheese: YOU are next. Are we on the verge of mass movement? For better or worse, we are. As studies of the urban future indicate, more people will be living in cities than ever. This runs against the notion we had only a short while back when e-visionaries were trumpeting the coming of The New Rural Life. Technology advances (especially in telecommunication) would make us enjoy the proximity to nature and wilderness while alleviating us of the need to live in (filthy) cities. But they missed one important factor: no amount of technological revolution is going to change anything unless the same thing happens to transportation. In fact, advances in mobility alone can determine how far we can live from the city. It was the advent of the car (coupled with cheap energy and subsidized highways) that brought us the suburbs.

The question would be then, what kind of transportation 'invention' is necessary to make us really rural? For one, it has to take us from the city center to our rural habitats and back even more swiftly and cheaply than the current car-centric system. The only alternative on the table is what's called PRT (Personal Rapid Transit). But that idea has been criticized beyond recognition. I side with some of this criticism, but only against some of the solutions and applications touted and not against the basic idea. PRT is a sound idea who's time has come. The problem is in not understanding that it's a whole new paradigm that will end up rearranging the very make up of the built environment.

A paradigm change in transportation would very likely bring a change in property values, and nobody wants to see their valuables tumble. Maybe this could partly explain why the Minnesota Experimental City (MXC) did not make it after being only within one year of breaking ground in the late sixties. Two hundred thousand people living in a dome with no cars or schools was indeed too futuristic even for that dreamy era. But not enough 'interest' from 'doers' in government and society in general is probably what put it on hold indefinitely. Until now.

Seismic shifts that would eventually affect the built environment are already being anticipated. Namely; the end of cheap oil; the failure(s) of the car on so many levels (even if oil was forever cheap); the water crises; the energy crises; the communication (especially wireless) revolution, and the aging population are only part of what we're heading into. The, then, readily available solutions of MXC and PRT would have been a marvelous mix forty years ago, yet are seen even today as futuristic and not the future. It seems we don't want to move from the corner that we painted ourselves into. We want to have our cheese and eat it, too.

It's Dark In Here

Just what am I suppose to do inside my blog? For those of you nonreader who are just nonentering this blog, I've stated before that this is not for anybody to read. I must say that this site is much better than Microsoft's MSN Spaces. I couldn't write a title called "Who Moved My Ass". It was 'prohibited' until I removed the "Ass" word. As for the blogger spell checker, I found it ironic that the word 'blog' was not recognized!

But going back to my title; I can't see a thing here. Not that I should. Ten years ago, the internet was just beginning to catch the interest of the general public, though it would be another three years until the business people jump in on it. If I could have foreseen then what things would turn out to be. And ten years from now? Everybody is thinking in terms of the advances in the wireless revolution, the oil peak, and the still ongoing advances in raw computing power. Yet life in 2015 will turn out to be a complete surprise for many people. The future almost always does.

And this blog is still lame and cautious even though I'm (suppose to be) deliberate about being spontaneous. Have patience, I might yet begin to improve in the coming few weeks. Until then, you nonreaders will just have to wait.

Look World... I'm Naked!!!

Naked in a literary sense, that is. Isn't that what blogging is all about? It's comparable to taking off all your clothes... in a nude resort. It's unremarkable precisely because everybody else is doing it. So now I can go on blogging about in the privacy of my own publicity.

As I've stated in my first blog, I don't intend for anyone to read what I'm writing. It's a therapy thing, sort of. From what problem, I haven't the faintest idea. But after I'm done with it I'll know for sure what was 'wrong' with me. So it's a blog about nothing, and everything. No, wait, that's Jerry Seinfeld's show (it could turn out to be copyrighted or something).

So, Dave Barry is 'retiring' in a couple of days. From what? Can you actually retire from writing? Well, if Johnny Carson can retire from joking with his guests... But I don't like to comment on current affairs lest my unreaders get the impression that I'm starting a real blog.

Writing as therapy

I don't want anybody to read this. Which is why I'm posting it to hundreds of millions to see. Does this make sense? My point is if everybody has an equal voice then what we'll end up with is noise. Make that NOISE!!! Sooner or later people will come to realize, as the internet euphoria subsides, that we need to go back to hierarchies. No, to some that's a very bad word. Make that 'deliberate filters'. Or private editors. Or call it what you like.

But I shouldn't give the impression that I'm trying to communicate anything here. I'm not presenting any ideas, nor trying to reach anybody. I'm using writing in of itself as therapy. Writing in an 'exposed' form, that is. I have been a procrastinator and a perfectionist for way too long. Hesitating to write a single word for no logical reason whatsoever. Who cares if what I write is not perfect. I WANT it that way now. You don't have to read it. But that doesn't mean that I shouldn't write it. Or feel bad about writing after I do.

I've discovered that the writing itself is not the most difficult part. The hard part is facing the 'RE-' writing. The editing. The choosing a better word, a more appropriate phrase, a more coherent structure. But I'm done with that now. I will write regardless of anything else, with no concern for putting even a basic idea to unify the jumbled mess that I don't care to review (save for spelling and grammar).