Adrienne's Corner

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Hello, my name is Adrienne and I'm a blogoholic. So what is a blogoholic? You guys that are in the same boat know who you are. You waste endless hours checking all your favorite blogs before you form an opinion. You check your stats more than once per day and worry if your numbers are down. You read com-boxes that have dissolved into vicious and cruel personal insults, and secretly enjoy seeing someone get their comeuppance. If the blogger doesn't respond to your comments (ever) you wonder what you've done to not be included in the "in-group." You slavishly follow priests (yes priests), who use questionable language, and sneer and belittle those that do not agree with their opinions.

Recently, several bloggers have questioned exactly what it is we are doing. It's a good question and one I have been mulling over in my little pea brain the past few weeks. For some bloggers, the intent is obviously to inform and uplift.

Blogs like New Liturgical Movement provide an informed and literate approach to the liturgy. They do this without personal insults. Jeffrey at Roving Medievalist uses his time and talent to share his love of architecture and art with us. Father Scott Baily takes the time to bring us beautiful devotions for each day, yet his sitemeter tells us that only about 50 folks visit him each day. Meanwhile, many thousands visit the sites full of venom, spite, and insults. Explain that to me if you would.

Many bloggers like Adoro, Cathy of Alex, and Ebeth over at Catholic Mom Climbing the Pillars share a bit of their life with us. We can laugh and cry with these folks, and yes, they sometimes rant, but one thing they never are is mean-spirited and cruel.

Do I think we should all stop blogging? Absolutely not! The blogoshere can be a wonderful place to connect with people and gather verifiable (a key concept) information. It is a place where talented writers can hone their skills. Carolina Cannonball can pack more humor into one short sentence or simple line drawing than most of us can in a life time of trying. Terry can inspire us with his art, and Mark in Spokane can give us an intelligent viewpoint of goings on in the political scene. Deb lifts us up with her beautiful photos, and Father Speekman shares his beautiful homilies with us.

Bloggers have a lot of power, but if we blog without remembering the Two Great Commandments; Love God and Love Your Neighbor, then we become no better than the insulters and demeaners. If visiting the snarky sites brings a lack of harmony to your day, well, don't go there. Vote your opinion of this behaviour with the left click of your mouse.

This is a reprint of something Merlin Mann, the guru behind 43 Folders (a productivity blog), wrote recently that struck close to home about the issue of blogging and our time and talents. He posted this on his personal blog on September 5th. I have edited a few less-than-savory words and have left some in because, well, they fit, and I hope he will forgive me my presumptions.

Better
by Merlin Mann

Politics, celebrity gossip, business headlines, tech punditry, odd news, and user-generated content.

These are the chew toys that have made me sad and tired and cynical.

Each, in its own way, contributes to the imperative that we constantly expand our portfolio of shallow but strongly-held opinions about nearly everything. Then we’re supposed to post something about it. Somewhere.

From businesses we’ve never heard of, to countries we’ve never visited, to infants who’ve had the random misfortune to be born into a family that’s on TV — it’s all grist for obvious jokes and shortsighted commentary that, for at least a few minutes, helps both the maker and the consumer feel a little less bored, a little less vulnerable, and a little less disconnected. For a minute, anyway, it makes us feel more alive. Does me, anyway.

But, in my observation, the long-term effect of each of these can be surprisingly different.
What makes you feel less bored soon makes you into an addict. What makes you feel less vulnerable can easily turn you into a dick. And the things that are meant to make you feel more connected today often turn out to be insubstantial time sinks — empty, programmatic encouragements to groom and refine your personality while sitting alone at a screen.

Don’t get me wrong. Gumming the edges of popular culture and occasionally rolling the results into a wicked spitball has a noble tradition that includes the best work of of Voltaire, Dorothy Parker, Oscar Wilde, and a handful of people I count as good friends and brilliant editors. There’s nothing wrong with messing up every single day. But you have to bring some art to it. Not just typing.

What worries me are the consequences of a diet comprised mostly of fake-connectedness, make believe insight, and unedited first drafts of everything. I think it’s making us small. I know that whenever I become aware of it, I realize how small it can make me. So, I’ve come to despise it.

With this diet metaphor in mind, I want to, if you like, start eating better. But, I also want to start growing a tastier tomato — regardless of how easy it is to pick, package, ship, or vend. The tomato is the story, my friend.

This doesn’t mean I’ll be liveblogging a lot of ham-fisted attempts to turn “everything” off. But it does mean making mindful decisions about the quality of any input that I check repeatedly — as well as any “stuff” I produce. Everything. From news sources to entertainment programming, and from ephemeral web content down to each email message I decide to respond to. The sh_t has to go, inclusive.

And, to be honest, I don’t have a specific agenda for what I want to do all that differently, apart from what I’m already trying to do every day:

* identify and destroy small-return bullshit;
* shut off anything that’s noisier than it is useful;
* make brutally fast decisions about what I don’t need to be doing;
* avoid anything that feels like fake sincerity (esp. where it may touch money);
* demand personal focus on making good things;
* put a handful of real people near the center of everything.

All I know right now is that I want to do all of it better. Everything better. Better, better.
To underscore, I have no plan to stop making dick jokes or to swear off ragging people who clearly have it coming to them. It’s just that it’s important to me to make world-class dick jokes and to rag the worthy in a way that no one is expecting. I want to become an evangelist for hard work and editing, and I want to get to a place where it shows in everything that I do, make, and share.

Yes, even if it makes me sound like a fancy guy who just doesn’t get it. So, yes. I am cutting way back on trips to the steam table of half-finished, half-useful, half-ideas that I both make and consume. And, with respect, I encourage you to consider doing the same; especially if that all-you-can-eat buffet of snark and streaming produces (or encourages) anything short of your “A” game. If I’m not laughing at your joke, complimenting your insight, or leading the Standing O for something you spent 10 seconds pecking up on your phone, it may not be because I don’t get it; it may be because I think we’re both capable of better and just need to find the courage to say so. In as many characters as it takes.

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