Yesterday marked seventeen years since I started this daily blog. I've missed only one day. I wanted to catch my breath before starting the next seventeen years. You may want to do something else, somewhere else. I promise not to notice.
When I began mucking about in this corner of cyberspace. I screamed to prove my existence but was also afraid someone would discover I really had nothing to say. So far, so good. So what? I understand enough of the world and the technology that drives it to appreciate I was yelling theater in a crowded fire and might very well happen to catch the eye and ear of those whose native tongue is other than my own.
I make no apologies for or to you if you have stopped by. I appreciate the notes that crop up and pop up either here at the bottom of the page or via an email link that I still don't understand (I am consistent) but a suggestion like 'walk east until your hat floats' isn't useful since while I only occasionally wear a ball cap, more often than not, I'm bare-headed (and mostly bald-headed).
My point, though not at precisely this moment, is I write this for me. It is therapeutic, perhaps equal parts Jung and Fromm (more hopefulness in the latter), or maybe not. I'm not sure I'm the one who can tell. Some years ago, I visited with a doctor to help reassemble pieces and parts of my life, who suggested I didn't really like myself. I was thrilled as he and I finally had something in common.
My point, though not at precisely this moment, is I write this for me. It is therapeutic, perhaps equal parts Jung and Fromm (more hopefulness in the latter), or maybe not. I'm not sure I'm the one who can tell. Some years ago, I visited with a doctor to help reassemble pieces and parts of my life, who suggested I didn't really like myself. I was thrilled as he and I finally had something in common.
This space serves as the wall against which I fling handfuls of, well, you can guess what I fling, and no matter what you choose, you'd be right. But make sure you're wearing gloves should we meet because I like to shake hands. And if you are, I'll try to lick the side of your face, because that's how I roll (over and fetch).
I've gone back and looked at this stuff from the start through here and now. It must be artistic or autistic because I don't get it. Would that I did and pretty arrogant of me to then hope/assume it would mean something to you. That does sound like me, to be honest. I think 'sound' is the operative word.
Having spent most of a lifetime in people's cars and houses, the inevitable and occasional knast (JVA Stadelheim and Marchy and Magnus come to mind) on and in the radio, I'm used to working things out in a semi-private manner, more because I have to than because you want me to. And the beauty of radio over face-to-face is when you give up and walk away, I don't know it, and continue on like that tree in the forest.
The bigger the world has gotten in scale and scope the more intimate it has become through connectivity that was created for other reasons but upon which I have now hitched my wagon. I started writing this because I had no voice where I lived and even less where I worked. I had, like so many of us, freedom of speech as long as I didn't use it. I was Powderfinger and discovered I wasn't alone in feeling that way, but so few were willing to raise their voices, much less the alarm, when everything that made us who we are started to get stripped away. Red means run and numbers add up to nothing.
In my part of the enchanted forest, we were being rendered invisible and if I learned nothing from my father, and the jury's still very much out on that, I learned to wield words as weapons that could wound and hurt those who would harm mine. "Let the bastards thrive, for all I care. Since I can do nothing to stop them except embarrass them by running away." (Thank you, Joseph Heller). Illegitimi non carborundum, do NOT let the bastards grind you down. I certainly never do.
It should be sobering, all these years after starting to clean out the stables, there's still as much once-processed equine output as there is everywhere. Most, far too much, of it, comes from the biped variety. I live in a target-rich environment and so do you. We can complain or we can clean up but we can't do both, at least not at the same time. I've opted for the latter.
The bigger the world has gotten in scale and scope the more intimate it has become through connectivity that was created for other reasons but upon which I have now hitched my wagon. I started writing this because I had no voice where I lived and even less where I worked. I had, like so many of us, freedom of speech as long as I didn't use it. I was Powderfinger and discovered I wasn't alone in feeling that way, but so few were willing to raise their voices, much less the alarm, when everything that made us who we are started to get stripped away. Red means run and numbers add up to nothing.
In my part of the enchanted forest, we were being rendered invisible and if I learned nothing from my father, and the jury's still very much out on that, I learned to wield words as weapons that could wound and hurt those who would harm mine. "Let the bastards thrive, for all I care. Since I can do nothing to stop them except embarrass them by running away." (Thank you, Joseph Heller). Illegitimi non carborundum, do NOT let the bastards grind you down. I certainly never do.
It should be sobering, all these years after starting to clean out the stables, there's still as much once-processed equine output as there is everywhere. Most, far too much, of it, comes from the biped variety. I live in a target-rich environment and so do you. We can complain or we can clean up but we can't do both, at least not at the same time. I've opted for the latter.
I've chosen, macro and micro, to witness who we are and how are with one another when we think no one is watching (actually, especially when we think no one is watching). I'm not better than others because I know I'm fatally flawed (that would make me the tallest dwarf).
When I say I do not forget, I don't mean I'm single-minded (though I am two-faced). I'm eidetic and cannot forget. I remember everything that has happened to me: who was there, what they wore, what they said, and most importantly what they did (and didn't do). When I say I don't forgive, that's when I'm vengeful and vindictive. I have over seven decades of scores, real and imagined, to settle, as futile as that really is. Leave it to God? Please. He crucified His own Son-He couldn't care less about my injuries.
For the kindness of your company these seventeen years, I thank you. I wasn't always aware you were here, when you arrived or when you left. Thank you nevertheless. I suspect I was not the best company but you're not all that surprised, since you knew that when you picked me up.
I started this as a cyber shout to prove how different I was and have, to this juncture, more often celebrated how similar we are. I think that part has been mostly your doing, and thank you for that as well.
To be continued tomorrow, despite popular demand.
-bill kenny
-bill kenny
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