There’s something almost mystical about the moment you turn out the light at night.  Were you really ready to turn it off?  Have you finished your day yet?  What more must you do to complete it?  I’m not talking about the dishes in the sink, that bill you need to pay or the book you meant to read.

A friend of mine expressed his dislike of blogs today and I was so shocked by the apparent vehemence with which he opposed all that is blogish that I knew not how to press the matter.  So, I sat on the issue for a bit and let it soak in.  How do I feel about blogs?  Well, I’ve always thought they were a bit silly.  But, how do I feel about my blog?  Well, whenever there’s a moment, a thought that I just feel I need to share, I think about how I might express it on my blog.  What would I tell the ether about these miniscule thoughts of mine?  Mostly, I store these up until one night, I turn out the light, get in bed and close my eyes.  I open my eyes and look at the light around the curtains.  I listen to the sound of the air conditioner as it turns on.  If I listen hard enough, I can hear the gentle hum of the streetlights outside.  When was the last time I just sat and listened?

Ah!  But, here I sit beginning the tangent of “we never stop to listen”, which is a classic example of the “regurgitation” which my friend accuses those nasty, pesty bloggers of the world. There are so many thoughts and experiences which we all experience and yet cannot find the words when the world is so busy around us that we couldn’t hear the streetlights, even if we sat beneath one.  Sometimes, it seems as if we’re all just striving to communicate these and I want more than anything to shout to the world that deep inside, we really are all made of the same stuff.  Instead, I close my eyes and imagine eloquent solutions to the communication barriers of human existence, hoping that in composing the perfect conversation, email, speech or (I shall risk the word) blog will help justify my existance (and lack of sleep) despite the fact that I remain in bed with a significant lack of an audience or method with which to communicate.  So, I get out of bed and “boot up”.  I’m not really sure what it is I want to share, except that I know that I’ve hit one of those moments in which I have to write it out again and my paper journal just won’t do.

But why will that journal not suffice for this?  Is it simply because a friend thinks that bloggers are all so “self righteous” when they talk about their blogs?  Am I being childish in my desire to prove that this is a valuable medium for the expression of ideas, whether they be old, new, classic, vintage, retro, or fads?  Why do I even care about it?  It’s not like I “blog” very often. 

I’ve been left with this sense of the balance of the “bloggers” I know.  These are people who are able to share all sorts of tidbits, quirks and annecdotes with any friends, family and random iguanas that might have the time, internet connection (and ability to read) required to poke into their lives a little bit.  Perhaps my lack of posts is indicative of my inability to share as well as they can.  Or maybe I’m just busy listening to the streetlights and trying to convince myself that really… just five more minutes… I’ll fall right asleep…

I shall now seek the comfort of my bed once more knowing that I’ve shared these thoughts, no matter how important, with an audience which may or may not exist.  Slumber can now find me knowing that I have a way to at least begin to express the ideas I cannot find the words for when confronted with being accused of belonging to a group of people whose “self righteous” behavior is “obnoxious”. Me, I think blogs taste divine!

Tastelessly yours.