How could it be any different? Could anyone argue with this fact? Or prove otherwise? Moreover, what would bloggers be doing with all the time they spend blogging if blogging didn’t exist?
Think back to pre-Windows® 95 days. What were many of us doing THEN? I’d venture the vast majority of us weren’t pecking away on PC’s; they were way too expensive, unreliable and frustrating to learn. Of course even for those intrepid enough to venture into the consumer-level PC offering, only boring, colorless spreadsheets and stripped down writing and paint applications existed
for use on those clunky boxes. In short, a waste of electricity. Better to go work in the garden!
In the spring of 1983, my friend Todd, a budding systems analyst at DuPont Company, had put together a $5000.00 system that, in retrospect, could barely get out of its own way. In the realm of personal computing, he was definitely the exception, not the rule!
Fast forward to now: we spend way, way too much time sitting on our fannies, pounding out largely useless correspondence that will most likely never be read – at least not by anyone important enough to make a difference. And keep in mind that it takes time to read stuff, too. Was it John F. Kennedy who quipped, “nobody reads?”
Judging from a sampling of the more voluminous post-age I’ve run across, some bloggers have nothing BUT time. One thing seems clear: more than a few of them are pecking away on the boss’s nickel – at work! All the better to enjoy it, then – when you’ve 8 hours to kill. Time in that case isn’t so precious.
I’ve seen the precursor to this, way back in the early 80’s, before even email was anywhere near ubiquitous. I visited a buddy at his workplace, passing some other offices on the way. In one, a dude was sitting at his desk, engrossed in a lively onscreen session of what appeared to be a version of Pac-Man. After about an hour, I passed by again on the way out. The dude was still goin’ at it! Flash forward twenty-six years, and he could have been Tweeting or blogging his memoirs to the tune of a couple of reams a month.
I wondered out loud how much he was pulliin’ down…..maybe thirty-five grand a year?
But back to this bloggiing/time thing: Hey, we’re all writers now, eh? Anyone with a keyboard can slam text and enjoy the livin’ shit out of it. And as I’ve come to like, even dia-lup is viable as long as you’re not working with a ton of images.
And for me, the added satisfaction is in knowing that this free, idle time spent philosophizing online is truly my own. Being self-employed, if there’s time to blog, it’s really MY time; free, fun time – to fritter away as I please!
Got a couple ‘o hours to waste? To quote the Shrub: “Bring ’em on.”
But utility or usefulness – making the world a better place through any given insouciant ramblings – isn’t the point of this medium, which should be free from tedium. I’m beginning to ‘get’ that.
In fact, unless you’re a large, already established news media conglomerate, an arts & entertainment pub or physician’s association seeking a hipper, more casual, or ‘on-the-side’ method of communicating to the masses, blogging may be the only way to get your ass out there and THROWIN’ DOWN!
Who cares if what you put out gets taken in? To reiterate: we’re all writers now; get over it! And as the Web’s newly appointed philosopher-kings, we have an obligation, and that is to make maximum use of all this free storage! And what better way to do that than to utilize WordPress’s top-quality rich text editor?
I’ll expound on this and solve other problems with the universe in future posts, enjoying, however temporarily, this blip in time ‘twixt winter lull and bust-ass spring labors. And when the latter happens, you might not hear from me for 6 months.
Hey, I ain’t no Wendell Berry!
But after all, we call this place a farm; yet for all intents and purposes, it’s mostly a full-time job. But hey, it’s paid for.
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DontLaughItsPaidForFarm 