Blogging on blogging
“Blogging on blogging.” Hmph. It doesn’t get much more self-referential than that, does it?! (But is it really self-referential? Or does it just mean I’m thinking in circles? You be the judge…)
A post titled “Blogging is better than photography,” published by my good friend Steve Yost in his blog, Blur Circle, set me to thinking. Way back in 2002, when the blogosphere was still in its infancy, Steve suggested, in effect, that blogging may help one view and even experience the world more consciously. I agree, but…
Steve is one of the world’s good guys. He is a developer of elegant, useful, and extraordinarily user-friendly software and Web services (see his QuickTopicSM and Quick Doc ReviewSM for just two noteworthy examples — and check out the “Pro” versions of both services). He is also one of the founders of the Social Software Alliance; he’s an unusually clear thinker and a deliciously erudite writer; and, to his everlasting credit, he is also a truly decent human being. In this instance, I completely agree with him.
But I would elaborate a bit more on his notion that blogging about something makes one think about it more deeply: I would also add that the act of blogging (that is, posting one’s thoughts in a form that, by definition, may be read by anyone in the world) also may encourage one to clarify one’s thinking, because expressing a thought in writing takes the cogitation to a whole ‘nother level.
One wouldn’t want to publish a half-baked thought where it can be challenged and possibly even torn to pieces by a vigilant and often hyper-critical audience, would one? After all, just in getting to this point in this brief essay, I have already spent several minutes considering which links might be most representative for their purposes, as well as carefully checking service-marked business names to make sure I list them correctly and re-reading Steve’s blognote to ensure that I hadn’t missed something. And it’s a certainty that I will be forced to continue to refine my own thinking if I decide to add more to this note.
Here’s a perfect example of what I mean: I just wrote, “One wouldn’t want to publish a half-baked thought…” — but is that what I really meant? Or did I mean to say, “One wouldn’t want to publish half-baked a thought…”? (There is a difference.) And if my intention was the former, is there a better way I could have phrased it, so that the reader doesn’t have to ponder what I actually meant? Perhaps “One wouldn’t want to publish a thought before one has cogitated it fully…” would have more accurately reflected what I meant.
Uh-oh. Is it possible that I now feel both interpretations are true? Having been forced to reconsider what I originally wrote, and to pose a different way of expressing it, I have actually clarified both my thinking about the idea itself and the writing I will use to express the idea. Thus, I might now write that “One wouldn’t want to publish a half-baked thought in a poorly-written manner where it can be challenged and possibly even torn to pieces by a vigilant and often hyper-critical audience.”
So you tell me: Is this bognote1 on blogging indeed self-referential? Or am I just thinking in circles?
1 [See first comment, below. —Ed.]
Yes, this bognote is self-referential. Omphaloskeptic even. Did you mean (in the last ‘graph) “blognote?”
BTW WordPress sure is odd when you sign up for an account in order to post a comment. When you first log in it takes you to your profile page. Fair enough. But there is no link that I saw to the blog itself! The only other obvious nav is labeled “Dashboard” so I tried that. It takes me to the WP admin panel for the blog! But with zero privileges to change anything (which is a good thing), but no indication of my impoverished priv status until I click on each link and get told “no-no.”
Welcome to the SkyFey blog, Keith!
Heh - yes, I did mean “blognote.” But “bognote” may be more representative of the current state of my thinkery. ;-)
The annoyance you may be experiencing may not be a flaw in the development of WordPress; it’s more likely to be an oversight in my implementation of it. (Did the profile page to which you were taken after signing up for an account not even have a hotspot on the “SkyFey | The Blog” title at the top of the page? Granted, that would not be as obvious as it should be, but at least it would be a start.)
I will look into the issues you raise. Thanks for pointing them out!
I didn’t assume that the sign-in difficulties were the fault of the way you configured Wordpress. In fact, having configured Wordpress once myself, I have no recollection of touching anything about the way that process flows. I just assumed it was the default way WP behaves when setting up a new account.
I tried just now to visit my account page to look around to see if I missed an obvious link to skyfey.com or pehaps the blog — but I can’t see any way from here to get to a “my account” page.
These are some of the reasons I love textpattern. (Elegance and beauty are some others.)
Oh, where was textpattern when I needed it? (Just kidding!)
I’m committed to WordPress for a number of reasons, so it will have to be one of my tasks to improve the sign-up process, if I can. Everything else about WordPress is easily customizable, so I can’t imagine that there won’t be some way I can make the user experience better. All I need is a little time (and some extra energy)!