Bloggers Will Save The World

Home, for us all.

Take a look to the left.  See the globe?  Each Yellow Dot represents someone who has visited my blog.  The larger the dot, the more visits there were.  The red one in Arizona is me.  Hello!!!  If you click on the right bottom of the globe page, beneath the fingers, a close up will appear on the screen.  And if you click "Visitors" on that screen, you can see who visited in the last 24 hours. 

Beneath that is a informational counter.  It shows how the number of visits are broken down.  You can click on the symbols below "since 2009/06/03", the day I began.  If you click on the flags, you can see where that country is in the world.  They are very interactive.  Go on, feel free to play around.

I really mean it when I say that blogging will save the world.  Look at the world map above.  I picked this photo because it is the world as bloggers see it - without borders.  It's the world we want to have, where I can talk to you and you can talk back to me, where we can listen to each other and enjoy one another's company.  I think you are worth knowing.  I want to know what you think and share my world with you. 

We now have the equivalent of Star Trek's universal translator - it's called the internet!  And on Blogger, it can literally translate my language into yours and visa versa.

No longer do we have to listen to biased news broadcasts and idiotic talk show ranters.  No more dishonest politicians coloring our worlds with their version of how the world works.  And no more corporations trying to form our opinions of what the world needs through their political mouthpieces.

This is the place where we truly begin to know one another.  Whether through shared or contrasting opinions, enjoying the same diversion and hobbies, or seeing each other's environments through a camera lens - we get a sense of who else has a stake in this planet. 

We have so many ways to communicate.  The world is no longer a faceless place beyond our artificial borders.  And all borders are artificial.  In one way, they define our "national" pride and sense of belonging.  But, they have been used by governments for their own gains and without our consent, to isolate us from one another. 

To that, we say NO!  Yellow Dots - UNITE!

MY NAME ESCAPES ME.....*


Retiring from a former life requires diligent purging. The old chrysalis must be fully detached before a newly devised being, mostly of our own choosing, can continue along the chosen path. There was that life and now there is this life and all those old things won't fit. Belongings are easy. Paper is the bane of my existence.

As long as we are alive on this planet, we are going to leave a paper trail. Certainly if we maintain a home and vehicles, deal with money in it's various forms, expect to leave anything to the next generation or deal with any taxing authority. Someone, probably my Executor, is going to be dealing with that for years after my demise. Any Executor knows you are not dead until the IRS says you are, which is exactly the second after the time period you are required to keep records. Then, you are good and dead.

So, this is the month I rid myself of extraneous file boxes, keeping only what is essential. My parents and an uncle are now reduced to one section of an accordion file, each containing a birth certificate, a death certificate, a will and a closing statement. I don't even need that. But, these things are filed along with expired passports, marriage certificates and titles to all the properties I ever owned. The record if their lives are now stored with the other mementos.

All I need is memory to bring them back and of course, I have wonderful photographs. Still, something is irretrievably gone. The closest I can come to describing it is "voice". Most of that comes from the written word and none of these people did that. Certainly, autobiographies are for those who consider their lives above the fray and are capable of producing (without a blush), ego driven expositions that assume the public would be interested in more details of their lives than are generally known. Although autobiographies are always suspect, biographers and their subjects make fine reading. Neither applies to the casual writer.

What is needed here, it would seem, is a "commonplace book", defined as a personal journal in which quotations, essays, literary excerpts, quips and comments about one's own or other's observations are gathered. Quite a few exist as published material; one of the best is "A Certain World" by W. H. Auden. In fact, he described it as the closest thing to an autobiography he would ever write. It was "a map of his planet". These compilations require a curious mind, reasonable intelligence, some facility with language and naturally, something to say, for judgements will be made on whether we will be spending time with each other, or moving on.

Blogging, with it's freewheeling structure fits this description perfectly. The author's choice of subject matter, the manner of expression and the response to it are multi layered and more personally revealing than a formal narrative. The medium is so inherently flexible that if something you observe resonates within your psyche as familiar, a response can be made immediately and a communication established. Here is the vital difference between histories and blogs. Blogs are two way streets. Each is a personal vision of the author's world; the "voice" we hear. It is not only possible to see how someone's mind works in these circumstances, it is inevitable.

My name has not escaped me, yet. But, as it turns out, it is the least important thing you need to know.

* ("My Name Escapes Me" - Alec Guiness. Written upon his retirement - one of them).