…come not to mourn Blogger, but hype it. Or cry over it. I don’t know. Who knows anymore?
Such a simple platform, easily visible to those in the know. So easy to use. And yet somehow emblematic of an earlier age. I’m a semi-educated hick transcribing telegrams to rush across town to Mr. So & So the big wig or something.
But once upon a time, Blogger was a kind of home to so many. Now it’s like Google’s own Ozymandias or some shit. If you’re mighty, just go ahead and start despairing. Is what I’m saying.
Anyway. I might start using this as a daily public scratchpad and not even worry if anyone sees it. I may not write again for another (almost) three years. Miracles happen every day. Yo.
Hello. It is 8:16 am ET on January 21 in the year of our Lord 2022. The news today is bad. The news is bad every day. It has been bad for two years now.
Meat Loaf died. He was 74. Mr. Loaf (born Marvin Lee Aday) collaborated with Jim Steinman to bring young Boomers and Gen Xers an operatic vision of doing it in the car.
He also showed us rock stars didn't need to look a certain way. They could sound like tenors meant for Wagnerian godhood but look like a guy from Texas named Marvin and the world would not wobble from orbit and perish in the embrace of the Sun.
Elon Musk's Neuralink fascinates me. I wish it didn't, because overall the whole device "implanted flush with skull & charges wirelessly, so you look and feel totally normal" thing he's proposing is as dystopian as awaiting trial for an unknown crime while dressed in a cockroach suit and being guarded by sentient, fascist barnyard animals. At the same time, it points toward something that will happen. The question I have is just how comprehensive such an implant might be. Could someone upload from their mind as well as receiving input? There are things I'd like to get rid of. And if human consciousness could be located in a specific way in the brain, could we simply upload that once our bodies give out? Maybe grow a new self (clone) and download into that? Scary and intriguing. Mostly scary.
Here ends another random ironic Blogspot entry. I will return later. In a day or six months, not sure.
The old cliche about life coming at you fast is too damn true. Pretty sure I was 18 just yesterday, driving a 1980 Buick Regal around Nashville, the car packed with friends.
I'm not sad or down about being 51, just kind of amazed. I've outlived two siblings and some cousins, not to mention classmates from high school and college. I couldn't have predicted who or how many on that score.
I did predict some of where my life would go; I knew years ago. But it's mostly been good and bad surprises.
I have another 30-40 years to go, Lord willin'. I don't know much of what will happen but it will, at minimum, be interesting.
This seems silly as hell on some level but I've been reading up on the philosophy of stoicism.
Stoicism isn't what most people think--it's not about merely enduring adversity with stony resolve. On a practical level it's about understanding what we can and cannot control and adjusting accordingly. There's this lovely practicality to it that soothes my anxiety-ridden nature.
Seeking to understand a new philosophy at 50 is the part that feels so silly, I guess. Yet there is a simplicity about stoicism that doesn't task my supposedly aging brain. And it isn't about enduring hardship but about finding contentment in the middle of the storms life sends your way.
I need that sort of input. It's pretty fucking cool.
Hands up if you're the kind of person who tends to actively sabotage your own happiness. That's me. It's not intentional at all--though who would intentionally sabotage themselves?
I do this to forestall everything that can go wrong. You know, if you anticipate disaster then you aren't surprised when it happens.
At the same time it ends up something like a request for bad results. A self-fulfilling prophecy.
I turn 51 in November. Maybe this is the year I fix this shit. Maybe.
... if I just posted random bloggy stuff here becauseno one will read it. I mean, it's Blogspot. Who still uses this other than single aunts with macrame blogs? "Today, we're crafting an owl..."
It feels nostalgic, thinking about that. Before social media, the constant blog poster was tossing out stuff they would later just tweet. Sometimes that seems like it was a better idea.
