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Tuesday, March 16, 2010

The blog/time continuum

It occurred to me, that since most people stumble on my blog doing random Google searches, most of what I write may seem like nonsense. But to quote Gary Zukav, "Nonsense is nonsense only when we have not yet found that point of view from which it makes sense."

Taken out of context most of what I write is nonsense.  But since the only person who has followed my blog from the very beginning and stayed with it up until now is me. So everyone else lacks the continuity of understanding where I came from and how I arrived at where I am.

It is that fourth dimension of the space/time continuum that physicists banter about. We are all three dimensional creatures so we are unable to perceive a fourth dimension. We can only intuit that it is there. This is true in blogs and this is true in life.

Think about it. It is rare that you have someone in your life (other than yourself) who knows everything that happens to you from the beginning to the end, day in and day out. People pop in and out of your life at various points. And they only know you as who you are at that point in your life. Oh, you can recite your story from the beginning and watch their eyes glaze over right around the point where you describe how you were potty trained at a very late age. And sometimes they retain some of what you have explained about your past. But more often than not you are to other people that person they perceived from the time they met you.

Even people who know the present you aren't with you 24/7.  Your spouse isn't around you during that 8 to 12 hours that you are at work and your co-workers aren't around you that other 8 to 12 hours you are at home. Most people's families are only around them on holidays and funerals. So you end up knowing people in chunks of time and filling in the gaps with your own projections of who a person is.

So is it any wonder people feel misunderstood most of the time?

Reading an unfamiliar blogger's most recent post for the first time is like arriving at an archeology dig after all the dirt has been cleared from a tomb. It is difficult to conceptualize how much dirt had to be carted away and sifted to get to this point. Okay, most blogs have archives. But who in their right mind is going to go back six years and read 800 or so posts just to see how the blogger arrived at where they are today?

And with search engines, most people don't even arrive at the latest post.  It's like someone finding your high school graduation photo, thinking it is a current photo of you and then discovering that you are really a middle aged man who no longer wears a tuxedo with a ruffled shirt (which is literally happens on many online dating sites that include "recent" photos).

I think I understand why people don't follow your blog or your life on a regular basis.  It is hard enough following your own life without taking on another one who isn't part of your immediate family.

But I also think I understand why I blog. It is a record of my fourth dimension. It's those parts of my life that don't go on a resume or into a biography. It is the odd little bits of minutia of my existence that explain on a broader level who I am.

I blog, therefore I am.

But I still don't like green eggs and ham (I couldn't resist saying that).

2 comments:

R. said...

I have been wondering for a long time how I can intentionally split my mind into several parallel personalities running simultaneously.

They have drugs that stimulate brain cell growth. Perhaps with the right combination of drugs and training I could re-wire my pathways.

It would be fun to have one personality talking and another typing while a third focuses on walking or something. Perhaps at that point it would also be useful to make my eyes track separately so two personalities can use an eye each.

My point being is that if external people can't know you then make up your own people who can.

Time said...

Perhaps schizophrenics have a window into the fourth dimension. It would explain quite a bit.

As for making up my own people who know me, I think I'll just keep working on knowing myself. I've got enough personalities swimming around as it is.