What folks are saying...
You said it so much better than I have been able to do. What a relief to see what I meant to say put in an understandable context!
The label narcissist in this regard always has disturbed me. For me, and I see it around me a lot as read others, it's more like we spend our nonblogging day, many of us, constantly caring for and doing for others. Much of our artwork ultimately is about others. And many of us don't get the back-at-you's we'd like from the world, whether it be attention or affection, recognition or approval. Anything. Our culture frowns on this kind of selfindulgence, but blogging gives us a forum for it out of the way of society's disapproval, where the others are doing it, too, and it's OK. Yes it's also about slefexpression even when no one reads or responds, but eventually people do, and it feels so good.
The society of bloggers reminds me of someone's definition of a "couple": people at ease in each other's company giving and receiving attention.
Hi, Mark. Taking another pass through this entry today, because it's so provocative and well-written.
Re this sentiment:
I'll even go as far to say that anyone that does a blog with any degree of consistency and sincerity is an artist, and the blog is the art. Whether or not me or anyone else likes the product has no bearing on its validity. The art is in the doing.
The greatest artist I personally knew was a woman with Down's syndrome who had an IQ somewhere in the 30s. She needed close support with dressing and feeding herself. Mostly, she did not use language at all. Yet she was a completely serious, disciplined, and committed artist, using soft sculpture as her medium. She worked each day in colored yarn, old shoes, old wire, and whatever else she could find.
Some of her work was startling enough to grab me, a lot of it frankly wasn't. When I say she was a "great" artist, I'm referring to the purity of her artistic impulse. She lacked the conceptual ability to grasp the effects of her work on others: She had an inner vision, and she did not let anything stop her from realizing it.
karen: don't feel bad about posing those questions! i think they are perfect and good guidance. they challenge me to to answer them for myself, and if my answers are I care and it matters enough to me to write it, then it's good enough for blog space. i think it would not be a good thing to write/make/blog without feeling, passion or commitment to the thing at hand. that's where the living takes place.
Thanks for starting my morning with a really beautiful entry, Mark. I'll be carrying it around all day.
In light of your musings, my quip about "So what? And who cares?" sounds heartless, almost crass. I want to cringe. I meant that the blogger, in my view, is under a burden to make readers care, to make the writing matter in the world. It's a tall order, it can seem intimidating, until you realize one of the chief "rules" for shouldering that "writer's burden" successfully is to care deeply about the writing.
"it planted the seed in my mind"
I think that's why a lot of people read blogs. And I think that, generally, the type of person who would write a blog and keep it going for longer than a year is probably an interesting person and worth checking out every once in a while.
I agree, it is an art, but one in which there can be many styles and types. Also, you don't have to have a big audience to be important and successful at it either. I'm not selling my art, and I don't care that much if I do, it's the same with my blog. But if just one person gets something positive out of what I'm doing and can appreciate it - that's enough for me and makes it worth the time.
I appreciate your blog for its honesty, creativity, and humor. That's one more!
what a great surprise to be up rattling around and see such comments! thank you all. as usual, strong and fine points are made, and I am brightened and encouraged. Not that I was dark and discouraged, but just thoughtful without answers as usual. But at this wee hour of the day or night, I see an answer! Why do I blog? EXACTLY because of THIS! How else would I be lucky enough to be able to sit at the table with such widespread and cool people? I'm a better person and my life is richer for it. And that alone is good enough reason for me.
Well Mark, by my count this comment breaks your all time comment response of 4 by 1 or 2. I can't tell with my shoes on.
The irony is that I was lying. I don't believe a word of what I commented. Or? Am I lying in this comment? Lighten up, people. Heeheeheeheehee.
I'm sorry, Meg, but I have to say that anyone who makes a statement like that is unaware of the level of deceit they require just to get through their day. Blithely commited self-righteous deceit of the self to the self for the self.
Wow -- I've never had anyone tell me I set too much store by truth and honesty, and I'll have you know I disagree on principle AND the rewards of my experience in walking this road.
The less honest I am, the less I enjoy life. And you're going to tell me I took that too seriously, Rich my dearest, but eh -- I'm okay to err on that end of the scale.
That said, we all see life through a filter and we all have dreams and imaginings. You make life what you make it. It's not up to anyone else to tell you that you're seeing it wrong or right. Rich loves his stories, I love my mundanities.
Mark, you look at your life with a close eye and see past your own skin into a big, beautiful universe. Those eyes are needed. Keep blogging. We care. I care. You care.
And even if everyone stops caring, well -- there's always coffee.
I tend to agree with Rich, one needs a bit of the coyote, to blog. The aim is to make the sum of your falsehoods equal truth.
Not to mention, you're not nearly narcissistic enough. You need to work on that. Remember, it’s all about you — I don’t see how anyone could be a writer (whether blogger or poet) without some healthy narcissistic tendency. Writing is not a team sport. It is, in fact, a completely antisocial activity. It’s just you and your daemon. Sometimes it’s just you. Alone. You have to like your own company, and/or think that what you are doing is more important (or more interesting) than all the other things you could be doing instead; more important than spending that time with your friends and family. Why else spend that much time in self-imposed solitude trying to string words together, and maybe even achieve a decent sentence?
You have both TALENT and HEART. Never ever say something like "I'm just not that talented..." again or I will send Spike to put a hit on you. Death by Hyper-intellectual archetypal/metaphorical seance. It ain't pretty.
I have never worried about my work being "marketable." First, I entertain, inform, enlighten, provoke, and inspire myself; the rest of you are on your own. If the rest of the world does not think what I do is interesting, entertaining, and important, well, the rest of the world is wrong. Fuck 'em.
Don't belittle yourself. Take yourself seriously. Or else!
Truthfully, this is a great blog. I wondered why I do it and at last I have some idea.
As for marketable art... you don't need to make art to be marketable. Look at my poor stuff as an example.You only need a product,period. Useless ,as is mine, or useful as are car keys. You and Meg set too much store by truth and honesty. Deceit has its merits too. I lie so much in my work that I can't really remember what is the truth and what is not. Fortunately I've reached the age, somehow, when people shrug my lies off as fairy tales of a dottering old coot. Hey! That's not a bad place to be.
Don't you dare censor this comment.
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