Starting a blog has been one of the better things I’ve done lately and in just three weeks I’ve posted a dozen entries, as polished and informed as I can make them, though humble submissions compared with those professionals I read elsewhere, characterized by vivacity and creativity on hosted sites that sparkle with amenities.
But then I don’t write to compete. I blog for the sheer joy of it, the sense of renewal, or vigor, or like how I feel when I work out daily on our elliptical machine, not giving in to urges to postpone or cut short, but following through.
I like blogging because it seems to keep the cerebral juices flowing, Suddenly I am like some sentry on “qui vive,” or full alert, mindful of not allowing trespass. I aim to take the senses captive.
Sometimes I find myself unable to sleep, a high tide of stimuli flooding my consciousness, forcing me to reach for my adjacent iPad and stack sandbag notes. What happens nightly resumes at every dawn as I prepare to plant my feet on a winter floor and participate in a new day.
I think this is what I like best about blogging’s contribution to my daily round--this sense of connection with a wider world, not only with readers, but as one sentient creature among others who must earn his daily bread, grateful for morning, but never certain about nightfall. Living in a crap-shoot universe it’s incumbent we sanctify the Now. I treasure each day and hoard its treasures.
I am immensely fond of how Helen Keller, in her inimical way, put it:
“Use your eyes as if tomorrow you would be stricken blind. Hear the music of voices, the song of a bird, the mighty strains of an orchestra, as if you would be stricken deaf tomorrow. Touch each object you want to touch as if tomorrow your tactile sense would fail. Smell the perfume of flowers, taste with relish each morsel, as if tomorrow you could never smell and taste again.”
Blogging helps me make this happen.
