I've been trying to force myself to write but haven't really had anything on my mind that I think is worth talking about. Depression has definitely set in but I'm only feeling "dead most of the time" instead of completely wrecked, so that is a good thing.
It seems when I have been trying to write that I'm mostly finding myself frustrated and very, very tired. This summer the blogosphere has trailed off by such an extreme amount... way more than ever before. I know that things cycle, but when you follow 100 blogs it is sort of scary to refresh the reader and find that you still see posts that are more than 24 hours old without scrolling.
I generally try to keep commenting but right now that is very hit or miss. Blog posts either speak to me and inspire me to whip up some comments that exceed the original post length... or I find myself with nothing to say. I should probably try harder but that's the problem with depression.
I will say that this year that I'm finding a handful of things interesting when it comes to kink/BDSM blogging and the like. I'm not sure if I'm just at a different point in my life or what, but I'm finding that I enjoy acting as a "translator" when it comes to differing views on the lifestyle. So frequently I come across posts and comments and damn, they feel like the people are speaking different languages. Where I come in is piecing together each person's frame of reference and then communicating how those fundamental differences cause communication to collapse. I am selective when I do this, as I find in a lot of cases people do not want to understand, hear anything different, or care. When I do find someone that is genuinely curious and wants to understand, I really enjoy helping that along.
e.g. When one person sees D/s as a full time monogamous lifestyle endeavor while another person sees D/s as a temporary arrangement to be engaged in during a scene or bedroom play with partners they may or may not be in a relationship with.
One thing I will add is that I'm not a fan of disclaimers. It's one thing when people give a warning like "spoiler alert" or "trigger alert, this contains talk about rape and suicide" and so on. These types of disclaimers are courteous. The disclaimers that bother the living hell out of me are when people use them as a bail out to go on some stereotype-laden tirade and then lean on the disclaimer as a replacement for tact. I value careful word choices since they require thoughtfulness and an idea of how your words might be perceived by others.
When I write a post that is supposed to be informative, I use a lot of weakass statements like: "in many cases," "it is common to find," "a good number of," and the like. The reason I do this is because I really don't want to come off like I am saying "ALL."
"It is common to find yellow bananas." This statement is pretty much true in most cases (see what I did there?). "All bananas are yellow." Bzzzt. Oh, but don't worry, I put a disclaimer at the top that says "half of what I write might be bullshit."
It makes me wonder why people make statements that sound rigid and absolute. Do they think it makes their writing seem more legitimate, powerful, or truthful? I just think it makes them sound like an ignorant jackass... even if they have a disclaimer at the top. I don't know, I guess, but if you are wishing to manipulate readers with words then at least mask it creatively like, "a statement is either always true, sometimes true, or never true. That is absolute."
Truly persuasive words are the ones that are strong enough to change someone's mind, force them to revisit their own beliefs, or to think outside of the immediate bubble that encompasses their life. Just sayin'.
Rigid and absolute statements fall under the heading of "dogma" and are aggravating as well as grandiose. Those who spout dogma, and I'd include many religious groups (though that's another subject completely) are usually rigid people with limited points of view made even worse by their absolute insistence that their point of view is the only point of view worth considering.
ReplyDeleteIt gets old very quickly for me when someone starts spouting dogmatic views in an effort to convince me of the "rightness" of their point of view, and - more importantly - the "wrongness" of any contrasting position. I suspect you feel the same, fur, but I know that you can't resist dissecting and often eviscerating the babbles of "absolute" writers. I'd be loathe to spend my time doing it, but I do enjoy it when YOU get involved:) If working up a head of steam gets you putting words to paper, well, that's a redeeming feature that I applaud.
Thank you, Lady Grey.
DeleteI am glad that you enjoy my rants hehe. I seem to become more sensitive to it when my mood dips. I almost would love to people see try to justify wrongness nowadays. It seems the common route is to state rightness with no justification and then speak as if it is the only view that exists. At least when they criticize other ideas they acknowledge that something different indeed exists.
After helping a dozen or so newbies in the past month or two I am finding only a very select few of them have any amount of patience and seem to just want answers without the reasons behind them or process of getting there. It really is odd.
Take care.