Blogs, Guilt, and why I am (in part) a Medieval Monk

I've been getting really into some blogs since I discovered the ease of setting up and receiving updates through GoogleReader. I keep meaning to try some other programs for feed gathering, but haven't really gotten around to it yet (sound familiar?). Google tends to recommend blogs which may be of interest to me. I discovered that my blogs fall into 4 general categories:

1. Fashion & Style
   
2. Crafting (predominantly knitting)
3. Issues (commentary on current affairs & others)
4. Personal blogs (like this one)

It's got me thinking about blogs - their significance and the importance of this (relatively) new medium.

If you're expecting me to come up with something clever, you can stop reading now. It did strike me that the medium of web publishing will dramatically change how we understand literature (this being on the forefront of my mind because I am a literature major, or was and will be again soon). Still, it's a little premature for me to be gassing about web based literary theory, since I haven't devoted enough grey cells to the matter just yet. So I'm mainly going to gibber.

My old (both as in "older than me" and "my previous") dance partner once asked me why I blog. I got the feeling that he didn't really see the point of the thing. What's it to me? Well, I've always fancied the idea of writing/keeping a journal/scrapbook - but all that's lead to is a whole bunch of journals/diaries/scrapbooks with half-filled pages before I cave and buy another one. The ever present desire to consume gets the better of me. When I move, I debate with myself whether I should bring all these half written journals in case if I want to add a new entry. Well, I debate no more - because my blog is a journal and a scrapbook and it's fully mobile. In that sense, the purpose of keeping a blog and a journal is the same: I enjoy scribbling, taking note of things, venting my feelings, and perhaps most importantly, to be able to look back on them a while later and discern changes in myself during the intervening period.

In another way, a blog is much, much better than a paper journal. Though it doesn't have the physical presence of, say, a journal bound in Italian leather, my blog is out in the open for anyone to read. This means that people who care (friends and family) can communicate with me - but it also means that I have a chance to speak to people I don't know at all. It's like broadcasting my voice into nowhere in particular: and the surprising responses, positive or otherwise, are like slivers of gold found whilst mud-larking on the bank of the Thames. I am sure that the sense of surprise and pleasure I get is universal to bloggers - and perhaps the desire to forge relations with people we have never met is part of the drive to blog.

But doesn't it freak you that strangers are reading about the details of your personal life? (asked my old dance partner - or rather, he may have done, I don't remember). It would of course be a little freaky if a stranger was spying on me - but through my blog they can only access what I choose to disclose. You may think that I am very forthcoming (or not) on my blog - but I do practice self censorship in one way or another. There are often things I'd like to say (but don't) and it sometimes occurs to me that I should get a completely anonymous blog (though I haven't, because it kills the first part of the purpose of having a personal blog - i.e. for friends and family). I could of course limit the people who have access to this blog - though that would prevent me from casting my net wide and far. So I settle for a compromise. I refrain from badmouthing people who may be reading this, and I try to keep my mouth shut about things that I'm not sure I'd like to share. The rest is free.

It's no surprise though, however, that blogs devoted to a particular topic tend to draw a broader and more devoted audience. I don't flatter myself in thinking that many would care about the cryptic messages I leave for my future self in the form of indecipherable blog entries, or even that they would care about what I had for dinner (though I have found myself becoming interested, strangely, in the minute details of quotidian lives of strangers - but usually not for long). Unless one can make one's life extraordinarily interesting (I can't), readership will likely be limited.

So that leaves me with blogs that are actually about something. I have a little voice of snobbery in me which always asks "ah, but is this really worthwhile?" This voice tends not to crop up when I read The Far Eastern Sweet Potato (political commentary) and Opinio Juris (discourse on international law) - as these, at least to me, are self-evidently "worthwhile." The same goes for most of the crafting blogs, such as Cotton & Cloud, and BrooklynTweed - they serve a purpose for people with a common interest. The question tends to plague me when I sped hours looking at girls & their frocks on Only Shallow or Liebermarlene Vintage (of course "Only Shallow" is already a commentary on itself) - the pleasure of browsing pretty pictures is somehow accompanied by a twinge of discomfort and guilt.

I realize that here I am touching on a rather well-worn point - is fashion frivolous? Can't the same be asked of art? One could argue that a girl who has a blog devoted to her outfit, with a picture everyday, is vain, shallow, and frivolous; however, the purpose of said blog is to feature this facet of her life, so to judge her thus would be one-dimensional. All I can safely assume of these people is that they have a penchant for pretty things, perhaps mostly sartorial.

Maybe what troubles me more is the fact that looking at pictures of people in pretty frocks makes me want to consume. Yes, that's it - it's the materialistic nature of these blogs which makes me uncomfortable. Looking at them too much is like having a surfeit of consumption: shoes, handbags, dresses, accessories (a catch-all term that is verily loaded with potential consumption) - all of them things, things, things. I have gotten to the point of considering my predilection for pretty pictures of frocks (now easier than ever to access for free! Ohhhh I never used to be able to justify spending money on Vogue and the like) an addiction, with associated guilt. If not guilt arising out of some kind of moral/intellectual snobbery ("Don't you have better things to do? Shouldn't you be spending your time on something more important? Isn't this frivolous?"), then at least the guilt of wanting a new frock, which immediately makes me think of the environmental impact of production & consumption.

In all honesty I don't quite understand why I have such an insatiable hunger for things. Topher, for instance, seems to get by fine on much less materialistic things than me. I begin to question if my mild obsession with buying loads of cheap and plentiful shoes/clothing/accessories in Taiwan is really healthy. But would I really consume less if I looked at less blogs with pictures of pretty things? Or does it in fact work the other way around?

All this non-productive back and forth debate leads me to a few conclusions.:

1. A part of me is very definitely a medieval monk - I self-flagellate (albeit only mentally) when I find myself prizing the material over the spiritual (being sadly devoid of true spirituality of the religious sort, I settle by lumping all things immaterial, i.e. intellectual, into this category). In other words I can't feel at equilibrium unless I spend some of my time being serious and pondering what I consider to be serious things (cue The Far Eastern Sweet Potato & Opinio Juris), in order to balance out my appetite for frivolous things (cue Only Shallow, Liebemarlene Vintage, Bluelines). But I confess, the amount of time I spend on these two categories (shall we call them the material and the spiritual?) is entirely disproportional. There are 25 unread items in my GoogleReader under Opinio Juris, and 0 unread items in my "Style & Fashion" folder. What does my inner medieval monk say? mea culpa (I am, after all, just a poor sinner).

My second conclusion actually brings us back full circle to the first list, so I've taken it out of my conclusions list (which makes a list with only one item). The kind of hunger, or compulsion to consume, for me, can be fulfilled equally by creating. What I mean is, if I really really want to go out and buy a frock (but feel guilty about the implications), the urge can somehow be assuaged if I look at a knitting pattern and start on a new pair of mitts, or at a tutorial on how to convert an old t-shirt I have into a skirt. So in a way, I guess my "Style & Fashion" folder is balanced by my "Craft" folder. Similarly, my environmental conscience is appeased when I craft by using materials I already own, rather than going out to feed into the ever growing stream of consumerism - even if all that I buy are craft materials.

Either way, this leaves me where I started: at work, reading blogs about frocks & shoes, whilst knitting. It's a wonder that they haven't fired me already.