at first I wrote...

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...

Lately, I've been thinking about going back and reading what I've been writing for almost the last two years. [two years in January!] Above is the very first post I wrote for no matter what....

Looking at it again, I find it interesting, especially the semiotics part. The signs are everywhere to be found, not only in the world but also in this blog. There has been an evolution in what I've been writing and, yet, I sense that I've pretty much stuck to what I set out to do.

There have been changes over the course of the two years. I have turned to a pseudo-Socratic method of asking questions about what I bring up. Lately, I added the what's going on here... weekly post citing headlines from around the world and posing the question, "What is really going on here? I'm including music, video, humor, irony, photos.... I've tried to do more of an ongoing dialogue approach because I readily admit that I don't know everything. [Nor do I necessarily want to know everything. Somethings are better left in the ether!]

Though I'm still can be somewhat of a cynic, I have let more of myself be known to the world than ever before now. It is easier to do this when it's somehow more anonymous and you don't have a stake in losing something or someone. However, I am more at ease with myself and much more confident.

The end of the original post cites how the act I play is no one listens to me, so why bother? I am quite over that. It still pops up now and then, but even in my professional life I have become more demonstrative. It reminds me of something that happened a number of years ago and how incongruent it was with my act.

My mother was always one who thought about other people before herself. She was extremely giving, loving and caring. Catholic and Christian probably more than most regular people. There was one extreme that was part of it though. She worried about what others would think. My father and I could care less.

One Sunday I was over for dinner and a visit. I don't even remember what the conversation was about but she said, "What will the neighbors think?" My father and I, on cue, simultaneously turned to her and said, "Who the fuck cares?"

We both were totally shocked at what we said. Shocked that we did it at exactly the same time and even more shocked that we used the word fuck. Even my father very seldom used that word and it's the only time I remember him saying it in front of my mother. It was also the very first [and the very last] time I ever said it in front of her. It just was never done!

My father never cared what other people said about him. To this day, I really don't care what other people think about me. Yet, on the other hand, I didn't think, and sometimes still don't, that other people listened to me. Ironic.

This blog has helped me realize that people do listen to what I have to say and it's all right that they agree or disagree with it, yet I still don't care about what they think about me. It's there opinion. It's more important what I think about me.


do you find yourself this way sometimes?

just asking...