To post or not to post, that is the question.
Wow, look at that. It's been weeks since my last post here, and I only posted once in all of June. I've just gotten back from my annual July 4 Indiana trip, where I tried to minimize my social media exposure. I think it was good for me.
I've been thinking a lot lately about how much I want to interact with this electronic beast we've created together. Right before my trip, I made what I plan to be my final post on my old LiveJournal. I was surprised by the response it got - or rather, I was surprised it got any response at all, given that I hadn't posted there since last October.
At the moment, I'm working on the second of my Mathematical Lives biography series, about Florence Nightingale and her advances in the field of statistics. When she was in her early 20s, she hadn't yet decided to become a nurse. She felt a spiritual calling to do something for the poor, but she hadn't yet figured out what it was. At the same time, her family expected her to live the life of a young upper class Englishwoman - going to parties, making good conversation and ultimately marrying a suitable husband. She was good at it (well, except for the marrying part), and she enjoyed it, but in her private moments she scolded herself for being distracted from her goal. "All I do is done to win admiration," she wrote once in a private note. She kept trying to pull away from what she called, "the pride of life."
Sometimes I wonder if that's the only reason I write blog posts, just to win admiration. Sometimes, it is.
My choir is on summer break, and this morning I started my summer Sunday reading. I promptly came across Thomas Merton, saying, "I know why I will never really be able to write anything about prayer in a journal - because anything you write, even a journal, is at least implicitly someone else's business. When I say prayer I mean what happens to me in the first person singular. What really happens to what is really me is nobody else's business."
Even when I do my handwritten writing warm-up, I'm conscious of the fact that I've put words on a page that someone else could potentially read. There's an invisible reader looking over my shoulder, or perhaps from my subconscious looking through my own eyes. How much more conscious am I when I put words here online, especially when there are hits and clicks and likes to tell me how many people are reading them? Is winning their admiration - your admiration - really the most important thing?
Of course, I'm always conscious of the audience when I write my books, but that's different. Writing for an audience is the whole point. But even there, my goals have changed in the past couple of years. I want to do more than just win admiration with my books. I want to help, even if it's just a tiny little bit, get the coming generations ready to clean up the mess we're leaving them. That's my answer to Donald Trump and this national madness we're in.
And it is a national madness. Last night, I got another reminder of that. The worse things get for the current administration, the more its supporters are willing to abandon ideologies, principles, even things like truth, consistency and logic, casting them all aside and clinging to Trump alone. And so much of it is fueled by anger, by a desire for revenge that goes beyond reason. Things like clean air and water, an economic future, and basic human decency are all being sacrificed, just to stick it to the Libtards. It will end someday. Of that I have no doubt. But it will not end well.
There have been many times these past few weeks when I've felt like crawling under a rock somewhere, so I could just work on my books in silence. I know what I have to do. I still have a civic responsibility to vote, of course, but for the most part my job is elsewhere. Should I really be hanging around, reading stuff that upsets me just so I can write things to win admiration?
But it's not all about winning admiration, is it? And admiration is not the only result - or at least it seems like something I write does some good every now and then. So what's the answer? Just muddle along, winging it? Maybe so.
I'll let you know when I figure it out. Or maybe I won't, and I'll just do it without saying what it is.
I've been thinking a lot lately about how much I want to interact with this electronic beast we've created together. Right before my trip, I made what I plan to be my final post on my old LiveJournal. I was surprised by the response it got - or rather, I was surprised it got any response at all, given that I hadn't posted there since last October.
At the moment, I'm working on the second of my Mathematical Lives biography series, about Florence Nightingale and her advances in the field of statistics. When she was in her early 20s, she hadn't yet decided to become a nurse. She felt a spiritual calling to do something for the poor, but she hadn't yet figured out what it was. At the same time, her family expected her to live the life of a young upper class Englishwoman - going to parties, making good conversation and ultimately marrying a suitable husband. She was good at it (well, except for the marrying part), and she enjoyed it, but in her private moments she scolded herself for being distracted from her goal. "All I do is done to win admiration," she wrote once in a private note. She kept trying to pull away from what she called, "the pride of life."
Sometimes I wonder if that's the only reason I write blog posts, just to win admiration. Sometimes, it is.
My choir is on summer break, and this morning I started my summer Sunday reading. I promptly came across Thomas Merton, saying, "I know why I will never really be able to write anything about prayer in a journal - because anything you write, even a journal, is at least implicitly someone else's business. When I say prayer I mean what happens to me in the first person singular. What really happens to what is really me is nobody else's business."
Even when I do my handwritten writing warm-up, I'm conscious of the fact that I've put words on a page that someone else could potentially read. There's an invisible reader looking over my shoulder, or perhaps from my subconscious looking through my own eyes. How much more conscious am I when I put words here online, especially when there are hits and clicks and likes to tell me how many people are reading them? Is winning their admiration - your admiration - really the most important thing?
Of course, I'm always conscious of the audience when I write my books, but that's different. Writing for an audience is the whole point. But even there, my goals have changed in the past couple of years. I want to do more than just win admiration with my books. I want to help, even if it's just a tiny little bit, get the coming generations ready to clean up the mess we're leaving them. That's my answer to Donald Trump and this national madness we're in.
And it is a national madness. Last night, I got another reminder of that. The worse things get for the current administration, the more its supporters are willing to abandon ideologies, principles, even things like truth, consistency and logic, casting them all aside and clinging to Trump alone. And so much of it is fueled by anger, by a desire for revenge that goes beyond reason. Things like clean air and water, an economic future, and basic human decency are all being sacrificed, just to stick it to the Libtards. It will end someday. Of that I have no doubt. But it will not end well.
There have been many times these past few weeks when I've felt like crawling under a rock somewhere, so I could just work on my books in silence. I know what I have to do. I still have a civic responsibility to vote, of course, but for the most part my job is elsewhere. Should I really be hanging around, reading stuff that upsets me just so I can write things to win admiration?
But it's not all about winning admiration, is it? And admiration is not the only result - or at least it seems like something I write does some good every now and then. So what's the answer? Just muddle along, winging it? Maybe so.
I'll let you know when I figure it out. Or maybe I won't, and I'll just do it without saying what it is.
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