Blogging
A professor I’ve taken a couple of classes with is working on a scholarly project about Blogs as Writerly Spaces and this morning I listened to the presentation he gave at a Computers and Writing conference. There were a couple of things that interested me, one was his pointing out the perhaps misplaced idea of blogging as a genre rather than an activity. He noted that you wouldn’t consider blogging a genre in the same way that you wouldn’t consider the book a genre–they are tools of writing. I find that distinction apt and he’s right that I think the term “blogging” is sometimes used as if it is a genre rather than a writing tool like pencils, then typewriters, then computers were. As a side note, I remember reading an essay by Mark Twain in one of his classes about how much he hated the typewriter–I’ll have to dig it up.
Anyway, the other thing that struck my interest was his comparison to blogging as “side by side play” in the way that very young children don’t play with other children so much as next to other children. In a comment I wondered if that comparison to how children interact before they are more socially capable and before their world is bigger than “me” has any bearing on the type of person who blogs–probably yes in some cases and hopefully no in a lot of cases! But it did start me thinking about whether there really are communities of blogging or just categories of blogging and a comment by another reader merged the idea of feed readers along with that in my mind. I wonder if feed readers have lessened the community feel of blogging. I think for myself that it has in the sense that I used to bookmark blogs I enjoyed reading. I had a lot of them but they were manageable and I made a point to comment a lot. Once I started using a feed reader, it was very easy for my feeds to jump to such a high number that really feeling connected to most of them and commenting was really not feasible. This turns into the “you have 300 new posts” skim fest–or if I’ve been not reading posts for a week or more I end up getting overwhelmed and simply pressing “mark all read”. Do we end up skimming more than reading and commenting less due to feed readers–I think that may be true.
On the other hand there are still many blogs that I feel connected to that I will stop skimming and read once I get to them–but I still read them IN the feed reader and I found that strips away the personality of the blog. Isn’t a large part of the personality of a blog found in the design of it? Most of us put a lot of thought and personality into what our blogs looks like–but then I read posts on a feed reader and never see the actual blog. I think it has the possibility of making the blogs blur together and loose their individuality.
Anyway, just thinking out loud. I think I might need to weed out my feeds and start to read again rather than skim.
NOTE: For those using Google Reader, Sknitty pointed out a new feature called “next” that lets you put a link in your bookmark bar and when you click it it takes you to the next feed in your unread list–it takes you to the actual blog and marks it as read in your list.
Entering the Mac World
My husband completely and 100% surprised me with a MacBook for graduating with my Bachelor’s degree and I didn’t get to sleep until 3am and then popped awake at 9am and had to come grab it again. I’m so glad he gave it to me last night instead of today at my graduation party because I think I would have wanted to kick out all my guests so I could play! So, this is me writing from a Mac. For those who care:
- 2.4 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor
- 2 GB SDRAM
- 13.3″ Widescreen display
- Mac OS X v10.5 Leopard
- Superdrive that burns DVDs and CDs
I have to admit that the first couple hours I felt clumsy and like a grade schooler–I know Windows very, very well and shifting to Mac is going to involve a learning curve. I have used Macs in computer labs on campus but that mostly involved getting online or getting into Word. Which brings me to my first dilemma–get Office for Mac (way too expense) or hope that iWork is good enough (much cheaper)! I’m downloading the trial of it, so we’ll see how it goes.
I’m so excited and so aware that I am spoiled. I knew I was going to have to bite the bullet and get a new laptop in the next few months as my Dell hasn’t been portable for over a year and has been slowly dying on me. One thing I notice the most with the MacBook is that it is very very quiet. I admit to being a bit frustrated until I finally figured out how to get the trackback to double click and then was even more happy to find the two finger tap works as a Window’s “right click”–not to mention the two finger scrolling is very cool. The built in camera is great and so far the only slight negative would be that the edge where your hands end up resting is a bit sharp but I think I’ll just adjust where I rest them in time.
I definitely think I need a Mac for Dummies to get up to speed on everything! Regardless, she’s a lovely one and I am thoroughly enjoying being able to write on my laptop for as along as I want without it overheating!
Vanity
My dad and brother have been working to get better access to talking to my brother in Mongolia. Since he’s moved out of the capital of Ulaanbataar, calling him has been impossible. So we’ve moved to the internet and set up webcams. Last night (or early morning for him) we did the first successful run and all three of us were up and talking and viewing each others webcams simultaneously–very cool!
However, that morning I was still in bed and checking my email on my iPod Touch and trying out a little online tool called JiveTalk that lets me access Instant Messenging on my Touch. Well, I noticed my brother was online (he’s 12 hours ahead of us so meeting up at the same time can be dicey) and I dove out of bed and ran for the Webcam thinking we’d give it a go. Halfway to the office, I realized what I looked like and that people–my sister-in-law!–would be seeing me. I had to detour to the bathroom and try for a quick clean up. All that and it was a false alarm. Later that night when we did make it work, it was an unexpected connection again and I didn’t look much better by 8:30pm and had to sit through the whole thing seeing myself and groaning inside–vanity, oh, vanity! Still, I have to say my brother looked worse being 8:30am in Mongolia and his hair was sticking everywhere. My sister-in-law looked great, though, and it was wonderful to see my nephews on the camera. I don’t think they quite knew what was going on, but maybe next time when we’ve all had a chance to figure it out better. Anyway, the lesson learned is that I’m apparently now going to always have to look fantastic, just in case!
Choosing a Tradition…or Not
NOTE: I will warn that this will probably be a long ramble as I’m sorting much of this out as I go.
I’ve read a couple things lately on various blogs and a Buddhist message board about how difficult it seems to be for Westerners to choose a specific religious tradition within Buddhism (and I think even within Christianity these days).
There does seem to be a trend that the Western mindset is more reticent to join and fully commit to one tradition. I think many (not all) of them are coming to Buddhism as adults and out of one tradition or another of Christianity. I certainly fit that demographic and am coming out of a Fundamental Baptist Christian tradition which was very group oriented and very much held the ideology that they had the monopoly on truth and spirituality and other traditions within and without of the Christian faith did not. This background has two impacts on me in terms of choosing a single tradition: one, I have a distrust of organized religious groups, and two, I have a dislike of “my way or the highway” mentality. Now, I am not saying that specific Buddhist traditions have the mindset of “my way or the highway” (although I am sure that there are some)–I’m simply saying that is what it sometimes translates to in the mind of someone who has struggled to come to an acceptance of truth found in many and diverse paths.
That being said, I understand and even agree that there is strength found in finding a tradition and following it, there is a continuity and power in being focused, rather than scattered. One of the things I respect about Buddhists, such as Thich Nhat Hanh and the Dalai Lama (I believe), is their understanding of the powerful impact of our root traditions. They really encouraged me to go back to my root tradition (our cultural spirituality that we are raised with–for many Westerners that means Christianity) and find truth and peace within that if possible. This caused me to go back to Christianity and look for a spiritual center, a truth, that stood outside of a specific tradition (like the Fundamental Baptist segment I was raised with). I found a new movement that embodies the best that Christianity exemplifies and a core belief that is beautiful and to be respected. I saw individual people, like my mother and my grandmother, who come from different Christian traditions but exemplify the beauty found in Christianity. I found in my close Christian friends a “new to me” open heart and mind approach to Christianity that lets go of traditions and returns to core beliefs. In the end I reaffirmed that it was not a path for me, but it has been very healing for me to let go of some of my anger and pain that are tangled with that tradition and find the beauty and truth that resonate there.
Which swings me back around to picking a specific tradition. Buddhism, like Christianity (I should qualify that as New Testament Christianity), started out with a core individual who offered a new, reimagined truth to their time–Gautama Buddha and Jesus. They taught and exemplified a core set of truths and ideas and walked a path for others to follow. Since their respective time periods these core ideologies have been taken up by many different groups and cultures and have blended with other cultural ideologies and beliefs and have split off into many and various traditions. I think this process would be true of any spirituality that lasts any length of time but I don’t know enough of other groups to talk about them. My concern when it comes down to choosing a specific Buddhist tradition is colored by the damage to core teachings of Jesus that I see some Christian religious groups have done over the centuries. I do not believe that Buddhism is exempt from this process of shifting a spiritual practice and ideology to a religious “ism”. One of the most powerful books I read that addresses this issue within the context of Buddhism is Handbook for Mankind by Buddhadasa Bhikkhu–the opening chapter entitled “Looking at Buddhism” is a very powerful look at the way Buddhism has changed and splintered over the centuries. “The real practice of Buddhism,” he writes, “is based on purification of conduct by way of body and speech, followed by purification of the mind, which in its turn leads to insight and right understanding” (19). He asserts that many of the “ism” aspects, the ceremonies and traditions and “add ons” so to speak, “obscure the real Buddhism and its original purpose” (16). (For Christians, I’m sure there are similar books, I think The Velvet Elvis by Rob Bell is a good one) I think it is well worth tracking down a used copy of Handbook for Mankind–but you can also read the whole thing, or at least the first chapter I’m talking about, online (this link goes directly to a .pdf file). There is also an excellent essay or talk of his found online about the essential points of Buddhism where he tells about a metaphor the Buddha made:
While walking through the forest, the Buddha picked up a handful of fallen leaves and asked the monks who were present, which was the greater amount – the leaves in his hand or all the leave in the forest. They all said that the leaves in the forest were much more, so much that it was beyond comparison. Even now, try to imagine the scene and see the truth of this, how much more they are, The Buddha then said that, similarly, those things which he had realized and which he knew were a great amount, equal to all the leaves in the forest – but that which was necessary to know, those things which should be taught and practiced, were equal to the number of leaves in his hand.
It reminded me of a verse in the Bible that notes that if everything there was to be known was written down, the books would fill up the entire earth–yet when Jesus is asked what the most important truth or commandment was, he said it was to love the Lord your God, and to love your neighbor as yourself. You had to love God, you have to love yourself, and you have to love your neighbor the same as you love yourself. A handful of leaves with love and compassion at the core. For Buddhism, it is the understanding and cessation of suffering.
And so, I have talked myself all the way around to the fact that while I believe it can be comforting, I don’t believe that choosing a specific tradition or branch of any religion is necessary, and sometimes I think it can be detrimental to spirituality because it sometimes obscures the very simple core truths that should be the focus of our path.
Speak your Truth.
A HOPI ELDER SPEAKS:
“You have been telling the people that this is the Eleventh Hour, now you must go back and tell the people that this is THE HOUR. And there are things to be considered…
Where are you living?
What are you doing?
What are your relationships?
Are you in right relation?
Where is your water?
Know your garden.
It is time to speak your Truth.
Create your community.
Be good to each other.
And do not look outside yourself for the leader.
Then he clasped his hands together, smiled, and said, “This could be a good time! There is a river flowing now very fast. It is so great and swift that there are those who will be afraid. They will try to hold on to the shore. They will feel they are being torn apart and will suffer greatly. Know the river has its destination. The elders say we must let go of the shore, push off into the middle of the river, keep our eyes open, and our heads above the water. And I say, see who is in there with you and celebrate. At this time
in history, we are to take nothing personally. Least of all, ourselves. For the moment that we do, our spiritual growth and journey comes to a halt. The time of the lone wolf is over. Gather yourselves! Banish the word struggle from your attitude and your vocabulary. All that we do now must be done in a sacred manner and in celebration.
We are the ones we’ve been waiting for.
Oraibi, Arizona
Hopi Nation
——
Right now my truth is that I have been clutching the shore, slipping back into old mindsets that somehow if I worry over every possible outcome I will be prepared for whatever happens. I learned a long time ago (thank you, Tao of Pooh) to ride the river–to let go of the shore and keep my eyes open and my head out of the water, so to speak. Sometimes we forget, for a moment or two or three, the things that were so hard earned and learned! Then something simple, like a new flower opening reminds me to “smile, breathe, and go slowly” (Thich Nhat Hanh).
H is for Hope
There is something about spring, new flowers, opening leaves, that inspires hope.
