Caveat Lector

CAVEAT LECTOR: A BLOG BEGINS


As I begin this new endeavor, a blog, I am enveloped in melancholy. Sure, it's going to be challenging, invigorating, trudging, empowering, languishing, and sometimes provoking (thoughts or otherwise). But there is a rather disturbing thing about the nature of online writing.


Unlike paper and pen (remember those?), one cannot insure that the written thought will be private or at least found upon ones demise, the online blog can never be wholly private. Therefore, I intend for it to be public. That provides an accountability and an audience, both which I appreciate.


I've already written and posted poetry online, via a hosting website named abstractvoice.com, which my brother-in-law had built. That site taught me something tragic and beautiful. When it crashed and I lost all of the works I had posted there (300 written, and 100 photographic), I was devastated. 


I mourned the loss of that which I had created. I'd poured something of myself into each of them, and now they were lost in an ethereal black hole of hyperspace. They'd never be read or seen again. There was a part of me which never wanted to write again, never wanting to waste the effort or lose the history of my written path.


But twitter and facebook have re-invigorated me. I've been challenged to write things which will cause others to think; to break from well-worn paths; to become angry; to shed tears of joy and sorrow. I've been challenged to do the same by so many others. 


We live in a time of the written word as a substitute for in-person relationships. We've reconnected with old friends in a virtual community. We've made new ones by meeting those with whom shared interests resonate. We've began recording more and more of our mundane daily activities and travels via the web. This is exciting and boring simultaneously.


But it is time for me to write again. I haven't ever written to hear myself speak through characters, or to glean praise from others. Instead, I feel that I must write. It's wired within me to get the thoughts I have out in some way.


Sometimes that's by talking. At other times it is by creating art or by shedding real tears of sorrow or joy. As long as I can let it out I can find peace with myself, even if I inspire conflict within the hearts of others. 


I don't mean to be contrary. I mean to be inspiring. I hope to be challenging. I desire to be faithful. I long to be understood. 


So, today, Sunday 9/19/2010, is the beginning of my journey toward understanding of who I am again. I've recently had a knee surgery, and I now have an ACL in my right knee for the first time since 1992, and I am viewing this as a new lease on my physical self. I also called my Rector yesterday to try and set up regular counseling appointments. That's how I hope to find my center of my sociospiritual self. I'll be likely to start T'ai Chi Ch'uan again, as a way to find balance and mystical centering. So this blog will be my journal for those things, a way to mark my pathway toward a better life.


Peace,
Christian