First, and unrelatedly, Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize. This makes me feel weird. Thorbjoern Jagland, one of the Nobel Committe and possessor of a very fine name, said: “Only very rarely has a person to the same extent as Obama captured the world’s attention and given its people hope for a better future,” which is nice and laudable and all, but honestly. Something more substantive would be nice.
Of course, what this really is is a very strong statement about just how much the rest of the world hated Bush, how completely he buggered the national reputation, and how much everyone wants to believe in the United States again. I knew all of these things already, but this news makes me re-evaluate in the same way as the pictures of those monks in Vietnam who set themselves on fire back in the day: if you believe in something that strongly, whatever it is, then people better bloody well pay attention.
Anyway. That’s neither here nor there.
You know that I hate linking to Penelope Trunk, but honor demands it. Her post on how blogs need themes comes at the right time. This is probably why I hate linking to her, not because she’s solipsistic to the point of dementia, which she is, but because the results of her solipsistic dementia so often approximate my own thoughts. Which is probably a statement as strong, in its way, as that of the Nobel Committee, and one I will think about later when I feel more robust to the conclusions I would inevitably reach.
If you’re reading this you know that posting at LSH has fallen off considerably. We kind of peaked around last year’s election when passions were high and drums were beating. But that peak belies a general trough. A few times I resolved half-assedly that I’d do better, post more, but that was a stupid resolution since it was resolved in advance of really thinking about what I was supposed to be resolving, and why.
The long and short of it is that I’m not sure what to say anymore. The distinctions PT draws in her article are, as usual, stated too absolutely, or else maybe just inapplicable in their extrema for my own situation, which doesn’t match her own. I’m not trying to draw a giant audience. I’m not trying to be about any particular thing, and I have no interest in being the definitive source for discussion about top hats, or whatever.
On the other hand, the lack of focus at LSH serves mostly to keep me from talking about stuff. I don’t talk about writing because other forums exist better positioned for that, and it would be a waste of time to do it here. I could talk about the shit inside my headspace but I see no point in that anymore. If I’m struggling through a depression I don’t feel like making yet another I’m Depressed Again post any more than you want to read another one; and if I’m not struggling through a depression then what am I to say? Life is fiction, and fiction is drama. To ignore this reality is to damn yourself to a blog that resembles the Twitter feed of someone who doesn’t understand what Twitter is for: “Eating lunch.” “Going to work.” “Picking ass.”
Other themes, which are neither drama nor a catalog of minutiae, are possible, but tend to fall into the writing bin – if I want to talk about Big Ideas then a post here is, frankly, wasted. I don’t have the readership to make a conversation out of that, and what readership I have doesn’t care about the implications of audio illusions on cogntive pleasure.
Anyway, you get the idea. I’m not sure what I should be doing. LSH’s best days were when I was traveling, and I could post and keep friends in the loop, and those posts became records of experiences during an important and vital time. Every day I felt that much was at stake, that whatever shit I was dealing with could change the direction of my life, and so talking about it mattered. Those conditions no longer pertain. If life were a basketball game, that wandering period was a series of overtime free throws. Now, well, it’s the second quarter grind in a mid-season game. And maybe that’s a pathological way of looking at life, but that’s what I’ve got.
So I’m trying to think about what to do. If I should do anything; if LSH should change to something else or just go away. If you have an opinion on this you can post it here, or email me.