Emergency Post: Attitude and Blogging

Okay, I’ll be working on this one, since my blogroll seems to be dropping members like it’s some sort of trailer park bug zapper.

In the meantime, I have posted on the therapeutic benefits of blogging here.

True, blogging can be addictive like any other activity. Remember the days before blogs? chances are most of you were IM chatting, playing games, checcking out msg boards and a myriad of other pastimes. You can drop the blogging but it will not remove the problem. Basically, every behavior serves a function, and unless you find a functionally equivelent (and productive) behavior, you will inevitably find some other behavior.

For instance, folks who give up smoking often gain weight. why? Because in the absence of smoking behavior, they picked another behavior that served a similar function and had a similar topography, namely eating.

I would give up smoking for oral sex. Doing and being done. I might even give up eating if I could have a similar schedule of 2-3x a day. Imagine…

Where was I?

Oh, yes, the productivity of blogging. I know that there seems to be a cloud rolling over blogland at the moment, or at least my corner of it. Get a hold of your thoughts. Capture them. write them down!

Then dispute them.

Here’s a couple of links that may be helpful in learning how to do this:

A Website
and
Blogsite

As if keeping a journal made people depressed! Or maybe I’m wrong about this. I’ve been writing since I was an adolescent. Back then, I did think about hurting myself. Once I discovered writing, I haven’t had the problem. I could write journals, stories, poems, letters or whatever. It felt good to get it out. I felt better after having exerted the effort of writing all down.

The interactive nature of blogging is what feels good. The act of “Letting it all out” can be highly therapeutic. Getting support from friends can be therapeutic.

What might be the problem is that we might all be too nice, here. We want to like and be liked. In a true therapy group, folks don’t pull punches, but “get real” and call a body on it when they are being selfish, seeking pity or generally being a prick.

I think taking a break isn’t a bad idea. I think blaming blogging for a poor attitude, depression or general laziness is not. Blogging has only been around for a few years but depression, addiction, laziness and personality disorders have all been around a lot longer.

We’re all nuts around here. I’m okay with being a nut. I like nuts. Especially mine.

I’ve actually seen a number of exceedingly positive blog posts recently, even though I tend to collect the negative ones.

I never thought of my blogroll as being the bug zapper of blogs, but maybe it is!

Anyone else have something to share? Anyone else looking to take down their blog?

FYI, this one that you are reading could and would be the one that came crashing down, should some personal disaster strike. I’m not sure what, but stuff happens. Unsolicited Advice is a more robust animal, and is designed to withstand a lot more pressure. It’s not really controversial at all, which is why it has such a small readership. But it’s based on sturdier stuff, like rational thought, facts and reality.

This place, OTOH, is where I dump the rest of my garbage that seems capable of generating unexpected shitstorms at any time. So I hope you have your rain jacket and boots on. This could get deep and messy!

D.

Reads that Don’t Make the Blogroll

07/13/2005

Thursday

I’m an avid reader, no doubt. I’m also getting to the point where I’m too cheap to buy books. So what am I reading?

Blogs. I adore them. The ones listed on my blogroll are only a few of those I read regularly. Those folks over on the right are co-participants in my own little journey and fit my theme, such that it is.

There are a few that simply don’t fit in my scheme, but I enjoy them anyway. Here are some of my more recent finds:

Ask The Pope: How I found this one, I couldn’t tell you. This writer is skillfully taking on the persona of the new head of the Vatican. He’s actually quite funny and only somewhat irreverent while doing it. He has quite a following and almost everyday someone leaves a comment asking him to stop by their blog and give a papal blessing. Amazingly he does this a lot of the time. Maybe I like him because here is a guy who is actually having sex less than me. The comments are also a hoot.

SC&A aka Sigmund, Carl and Alfred: Square1 plugs him shamelessly and I have enjoyed watching this blog develop. He started out loosely writing from the perspectives of Freud, Jung and Adler on various topics, and occasionally doing blog reviews. Keeping up three different voices quickly became too burdensome, so SC&A is sort of a corporate voice, now. Over time SC&A has become more and more of a political blog, often summerizing stories from others and occasionally adding his/their own thoughts. A very good and insightful writer who more often than not leaves the blog’s namesakes rolling in their respective graves! I had sort of hoped for a more pschologically oriented blog when I first read it, but SC&A has found a different path and does it well. It’s really the only political blog I read. It was this blog that partially inspired Unsolicited Advice.

Katie – Ramblings of a SAHM: Mommy blogs are boring. When one of my favorites goes into mommy-mode I begin to mentally drift if not physically set to scrolling on or clicking another tab. However, Katie is a guilty addiction of mine that will probably cost me my man card. Maybe it’s because she’s cute. Maybe it’s because her family is cute. It’s probably because she can take something ridiculously mundane and make it into a full-blown drama while keeping her humor. Yes, it has to be the sense of humor about having so many young kids and the trials and tribulations of living a normal life while managing her little tribe. In anycase, I’ve found myself getting drawn in. Square has her blogrolled, but I’ve “seen” her around elsewhere and it might have been a comment that suckered me in.

These are just a few of my latest finds. Most of you probably knew about these before I did, but there they are, anyway.

D.