and so it starts...

I've tried this blog thing before and the most difficult thing is keeping up with it, but I would like to try and make a commitment to add to it at least a couple of times a week. Sometimes it might be something important, but most of the time it will probably be just some things that have been on my mind, my life, my thoughts about the state of the world, my distastes, my likes, music, b.s., etc., etc., etc.

I've been reading blogs for awhile now and they are playing a big part in the way civilization is evolving. It's the time of instant response, instant rebuke, and instant interpretation. I wonder, however, if the instantaneousness of this whole thing is allowing for time to reflect on what's being read, yet alone written. Is there anyone who is looking at the signs of what is happening - the semiotics.

Semiotics is an important concept of study. According to Martin Ryder,

"Linguistic and Cultural Semiotics is a branch of communication theory that investigates sign systems and the modes of representation that humans use to convey feelings, thoughts, ideas, and ideologies. Semiotic analysis is rarely considered a field of study in its own right, but is used in a broad range of disciplines, including art, literature, anthropology, sociology, and the mass media. Semiotic analysis looks for the cultural and psychological patterns that underlie language, art and other cultural expressions. Umberto Eco jokingly suggests that semiotics is a discipline for studying everything which can be used in order to lie." (1976, p7). Whether used as a tool for representing phenomena or for interpreting it, the value of semiotic analysis becomes most pronounced in highly mediated, postmodern environments where encounters with manufactured reality shift our grounding senses of normalcy."

Blogging, in a way, is both the means and the end of semiotics. It is manufacturing reality as well as analyzing it. It is art. literature, sociology and mass media all rolled into one. It looks at cultural and psychological patterns, as well as creates them. It is almost oxymoronic.

So, why do I want any part of it? I, like everyone else, have a need to be listened to. The "act" in my life has always been that no one listens to me, so why bother. I've thought myself a failure for that and I'm getting over it. People either listen or they don't. I know longer care. I am going to be inspiring and powerful. As a result - FREE!

and so it starts...