The Last Blog

I almost forgot to blog tonight. In fact if I hadn't reflexively checked my e-mail and found Katie's blog, I would've forgotten. I admit I'm sad school's just about over and now the dominant preoccupation has become figuring out what to do next. Worrying about homework already seems quaint.

Whatever the future holds, I'm going to miss this class even though, one of the several important things it's taught me is that I don’t really have a future as a blogger.

Defying high hopes, my Sunday night blog turned out to be predictably bad. Despite spending hours and trying really hard, I never got the hang of it. I actually seem to be getting worse as time goes by.

Almost always, I'd have been nurturing an idea during the week, only to toss it at the last minute after writing the first few lines. For some reason, when I nurture an idea over a whole week, it becomes complicated, idiosyncratic and unintelligible. For me it's better to begin from scratch about an issue that I identify as worthy of discussion, but from which I'm personally detached.

That isn't a promising method, I know. Bloggers are supposed to blog about thing's they're passionate about. But I've come to realize, during the last two semesters that most of my passionately held political and social beliefs, which seem very clear and straightforward to me initially, actually turn into personal, unsupportable vendettas and hunches, when examined critically.

Try as I might, I just can't think in terms of, and then craft persuasive arguments… even when I absolutely feel their correctness. Maybe I don’t have the patience. I don't know. But, without fail the more deeply I believe something, the more my writing becomes shrill and presumptuous.

I'm pretty convinced that it's hopeless, the other day I actually googled technical writer jobs…thinking, at least I might be able to write technical manuals… I could persuade people how to navigate their integrated home entertainment systems. That's a worthwhile service to humanity.

But as frustrating as realizing that I suck at blogging has been, it's been really good to be in this class. It's been very satisfying to experience discussion, disagreement and exploration of ideas beyond conventional conversational boundaries. I’ve thoroughly enjoyed interrupting folks in the middle of a thought, and being interrupted and proven wrong.

So, I'm using this last blog to say goodbye and good luck… and admit that I hope that I run into old classmates in the future and have the chance to interrupt them a few more times.