One Post at a Time

One of the little frustrations of blogging is that it's single-threaded. Meaning one can only write about one thing at a time. While that's good for the resulting posts (it helps when posts actually make sense and move from point A to point B) and good for the readers, it doesn't reflect the fact that at any given time, most of the stuff I've ever written about is going on in Me. (Full disclosure: OK, I am not actually a private detective.)

So by the nature of blogging, certain things get left behind, because once one' s words roll off the front page they more or less never existed. Until you write about them again. While I'm aware of and not entirely unhappy with the tradeoff of persistence for immediacy, it doesn't give a totally accurate picture.

Case in point. I did a long series of posts on the spritual side of things, then a few more posts at intervals following those. It occurred to Me how long it's been since I addressed that topic, and the inconvenience/inaccuracy of "single-threading" made its presence felt, strongly.

But of course I can't leave well enough alone. I start to think about whether this is a common phenomenon, the frustration of knowing that what one writes about today is just one little part of the big picture, and that most parts of that picture are "lost" in the archives, or somehow not able to be addressed. I can't come to any reliable answer about that without doing massive one on one research. So . . .

From there, I start to theorize that blogs, rather than just being the expression of the effect, might actually be an element of the cause. Because thinking, writing, editing, editing some more, thinking, writing, editing more then finally pushing it out to the world for immediate digestoin and feedback isn't exactly a normal or natural way to approach thinking about one's life and the issues that affect it. So is it possible that blogs actually create a new way of thinking in us? An inherently different approach to finding our place in the world and coming to terms with that place?

Blogging about blogging. I have wandered into a Fellini film, I think. But like any good character trapped by that fourth wall I'll carry on. More on this another time.