Navelgazing
(and the art of self-referential blogging)
[Backposting on 9/25/09--post from Saturday, 8/15/09 4:30am-5:30am]

It's not quite 5am, I'm up with some half-formed ideas, mostly the stuff of procrastination and bursty energy, when I've got too much jangling around in my brain to sleep.

Blogs--mostly fill a personal space for me--not instead of, but as a love social supplement for our regularly scheduled overtaxed lives. Some of my friends are busy with kids (ella, quales, caleb), some of us are still kids (jill, eyeshurt, etc.) and reveling in our particular flavors of arrested development. (Who knew that the best part of growing up was not having to?), and some are actually the stuff of use that make me revel in the powers of the interwebs (stuff&nonsense, css globe, paul graham, etc.).

I've been reading more lately--ostensibly for personal and professional development. After all, I started most of this journey by teaching myself webby skills online. So if seems fitting, when I find myself bright-eyed, bushy-tailed, and ready for a 2.0 (or 3.0) beating, that I should look for my resources/inspiration online.

And for all the blather about how the Internet has changed, media companies (aka magazines, newspapers, and the like) are still struggling to monetize the web. I won't even pretend to have that answer (if I did, I'd be writing this from my sunny island beach house, rather than my slowly gentrifying back deck). But I will give you a hint--or at least not the answer you want to hear: You don't monetize the web. It's still about content, about making good stuff. Media is just media is just media. It's not the container, so much as the substance that counts. And it's too late to worry about web 2.0, get cracking on 3.0 already.

Hello, remind anyone of web 1.0, and a little dotcom bubble action? Anyone?

And in the meantime, the extent of resources, and content, and generally good stuff does feel more mature (ok, well, not all of it). That is, you can still access free stuff online and often the free stuff is the best stuff out there.

Funny thing, I make some of my living making and selling pixels and picas. A literal montization of the web, if you will. And I find that (respectful) free stuff doesn't take away from my work. It frees me up to pursue work that interests me. (Note: I'm not talking about stealing here. Give credit where credit is due, play nice, and remember to wash your hands.

That's right, all those random requests from Aunt Millie? No problem--introduce her to her new best friend, Google. All your band friends after you to build them a cool website? Hey, no problem, here's Wordpress! Your artsy friend who really really wants you to teach them how to get on the web? Grit your teeth no longer--point them away from you to the nearest browser, mumble something about W3C and html 4.01 and run away when their eyes glaze over.

In all seriousness--it's fantastic what's out there.

Sure I wish I had more time in real life with people. Yes, my writing has suffered from hapazard capitalization and acronymization (also from the bastardization of perfectly good words). Sure, I wish my (select 2-3 from the following: blog, sketchbook, random photo of my dogs, random photo of your dogs, random photo of your dinner, 1.5 minute cellphone video, painting, illustration, doodle...) would make me money like I was riding a dotcom bubble...

But in the meantime, this reminds me of a conversation I had ages ago with my cousin, about keeping the professional and the personal spheres separate. I've chewed on that thought over the years, and it's been interesting to see her blogging again. Since I have no hugely important role of my own, and since my approach to blogging (and life) has been haphazard at best. I've been free to play in the big sandbox in the clouds--myspace, friendster (kehoe too!), dogster, ofoto, orkut, flickr...you get the idea). But in the end, the good stuff has lasted (blogger--even when I should have upgraded to wp, they made it easy to stay), yes, much due to inertia plus a misguided sense of loyalty/nostalgia.

Not sure what it means that so much of my life is stored, willy-nilly, on servers I'll never see. Not sure what it evokes, this life history that's spread across bytes and scrap of paper. It all feels so tenuous when I think of it--a huge chasm--and I'm a little sisyphean ant toiling away at my frantic foolishness.

But then, perhaps it's about impermanence. Letting go. Making stuff to make, rather than destroy.

Guess that's as real as it gets. So mebbe this is IRL after all...?
Labels: blather, blogging, impermanence, making, navelgazing, process

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