Why Blog?
As I set out to create this profile, the question occurred to me, "Why should I blog?" Besides the obvious personal response to this question ("because I like writing"), a more practical answer came to mind that I have heard from time to time...because writing releases me from my own subjectivity. I'm not sure if I buy that completely. The simple translation into words of the thoughts and feelings that I am experiencing cannot really, in itself, connect me to others that surround me--and it certainly cannot force others to see as I see. I guess William Wordsworth came closest to achieving this in some of his verse, but I still feel that his accomplishments were more sleight of hand, relying too fully on passion and emotion, which are far too easily manipulated in people like me. Yet, even if writing does not completely release us from our individual perceptions, from our absorbment into self, from the prison of our own minds, there remains a particular value: the fact that words can make concrete our temporal experiences in some regard (even to strangers like our selves). In such a capacity, words are certainly powerful.

Human society has always been established on the story, or more specifically, the shared story. Even as I sit in my bedroom this morning, I can look around and see the trappings of others' experiences, the artifacts of truth, simply thrown about in bits of narrative. One of my roommates enjoys keeping us updated on the newsworthy events that occur in our area--the new cigarette tax being debated by the legislature, the semi that turned over on I-20 leaking some sort of dangerous gas/liquid (I still don't know what that was all about), or the brick wall of a prominent area night club that collapsed into a busy downtown road during rush hour traffic. When he starts off on one of these updates, he usually begins with, "Basically..." and proceeds to condense the event into a few short sentences that can best depict the primary significance of the occurrence. The process is one of storytelling, of taking a remembrance of particular narrative events, translating them into words, and making the events relevant to the listener. Similarly, my other roommate is frequently the bearer of "strange" news. He enters the room and begins straight into a tale of what happened to him on any particular day with no introduction: "I was driving on I-20, saw a wreck, and can you believe that no one there had a cell phone? The one guy was probably from Simpson county, and he was wearing a wife-beater..." The technique is a bit different--no overt relevance except for the entertainment factor--but there always comes some sort of self-evalutation at the end: Am I like that guy in the wife-beater who was driving after having too much to drink? Probably not.

But taking these two techniques of storytelling hand in hand, we find that in relating narrative, in putting into words that which we experience, we can help others to experience. The goal is not some transcendent sort of subjective connection...it is the experience. Though the experiences may be distinct and subjective for each teller, language gives us a common arena, a community. This is why storytelling is such an indispensable part of cultures. Consider the prominence of myth for early societies, the classic epics of Greece and Rome, the banquet settings of King Arthur's court, or even the "story-time" feature of any American pre-school or kindergarten or grade school that brings the class together to hear a single narrative. The hearing unites us, but it cannot take place without the telling.

Hopefully, the stories that are told here will help others see the society around them and to see who they really are, or are not. Words, then, do not so much change the state of the writer but impact the state of all parties involved. By attempting to allow words to only benefit our selves, we narrow their potential. Words are a lot more powerful than we give them credit for. What we thrive on is the experience of the telling, the thrill of the discussion, and the energy of a common culture that language allows. So let's start bearing our voices.