Tuesday, March 31, 2009

Where's all the failure?

Great Caesar's Ghost! I have been looking around at other blogs. There's an education. What in the world am I doing in here with these people?

Most everything I have seen is either artsy-craftsy or foreign. By foreign I mean literally not in English. Many in Spanish, a few in Greek, one in Arabic, others in languages I was unable to identify. But even the non-English blogs were artsy in nature; lots of dramatic photos (closeups of flowers, men staring blankly at unseen women, a vase on a shelf).

The ones that I could read and weren't overly arty were either commercial, blatently advertising a product or service; or incredibly detailed documentaries of intricate hobbies. There are a lot of amateur food critics out there, and also a wealth of gardening enthusists. Along with them are the Renaissence people that describe themselves as celebrants of nearly everything: politics, architecture, geneology, medicine, literature, theatre; you name it, they have an opinion on it. Blogging must be the greatest thing in the world for university professors and some of their graduate assistants--a bullhorn through which they can blat their massive knowledge to the world.

Just a handful are by moms about their families, sort of a diary written for the ages in cyberspace. Everything else is the pretentious, artsy type of blog with lots of photos, incredibly busy desktops crowded with country-inspired print designs, and a paragraph about the flower that was examined that day. Some are maintained by actors or others with theatrical bones. And a few are into their careers as authors, people required to travel the world, chefs and so on.

What seems lacking are garden-variety people writing about their lives and how the events of the day affect them. Bloggers seem to be a gifted, successful group. Where are all the divorced men lamenting about their wives who soaked them in the settlement? Does a lineman for Power & LIght ever write about how a freak storm in Louisiana took him away from his family for a month? I keep hearing about the legions of workers laid off daily by cold, uncaring--hateful, actually--employers concerned only about maintaining double-digit bottom lines. Where are those blogs? Does a medical student, an engineer, an under-employed lawyer ever write about daily doings?

It just seems like there should be some failure out there, and someone to document it. People just barely hanging on to jobs, perhaps jobs they don't really care for but need. I guess that is what I am here to do, represent the undistinguished Philistines in the middle-class. Obviously, I will never be confused with anything more highbrow than Cousin Eddie. But count on me pretty much always writing in English.

1 comment:

  1. And I appreciate that seeing that I got a D in spanish! However, Ey llamos en aqais montonas!

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