Hello to all my family, friends, fellow racers, acquaintances, and strangers,
Well guys, I give up; you finally got me. I lose and you win.
Me: 0
You Guys: 1
I have been doing such an excellent job for the last two months of not making an entry on this blog, but in a moment of weakness I seem to now be doing just that. I guess that it was, after all, inevitable.
"But why, Jeff??" my loyal readership implores me…"Why are you such an anti-bloggite??" Well my good friends, I would be happy to explain…and don't worry, I'll be candid:
First, I hate the idea of blogging, because it feels pretentious and lame. Past generations may have liked to hear themselves talk, but, if the popularity of social media is any indication, this one seems obsessed with the notion of being read. Which one of you has the monopoly on truth? Which one of you is so wise and learned as to condescend to instruct lowly Facebook users like myself about the mysteries of life and humanity? If you're not the Pope or John Piper, can't you just stick to Twitter?
Second, I hate the idea of blogging because, despite my first point, part of me still feels compelled to do it…part of me wants so badly to be heard and recognized. I feel guilty right now for writing this blog post, but for some reason I am doing it anyway! Allow me to put it this way: My disdain for reading most blogs is matched only by my imagined (and now experienced) disdain towards myself for writing one. What right do I have to condemn or judge blogging? Who gave me the monopoly on blogging related truth? How dare I condescend to instruct lowly Facebook users like yourselves about the mysteries of life and humanity? If I'm not the Pope or John Piper, can't I just stick to Twitter?
Well, no…Because I hate the idea of Twitter even more than I hate the idea of blogging.
So now you see the problem. The cat is out of his bag once and for all. I feel that desire to write and express my thoughts/feelings that you all do. I feel that desire to share truth that I have discovered or that has been revealed to me. I want to offer instruction and appear wise and clever to my loyal readers. I want people to know how spiritual I am, and to respect and admire me. And yet I resist this urge just long enough to become judgmental and superior before my self control gives out and I find myself doing the very thing I hate…
I'll let someone else explain this idea much more eloquently than I could:
"…hadn't I better end my "Notes" here? I believe I made a mistake in beginning to write them, anyway I have felt ashamed all the time I've been writing this story; so it's hardly literature so much as a corrective punishment. Why, to tell long stories, showing how I have spoiled my life through morally rotting in my corner, through lack of fitting environment, through divorce from real life, and rankling spite in my underground world, would certainly not be interesting; a novel needs a hero, and all the traits for an anti-hero are expressly gathered together here, and what matters most, it all produces an unpleasant impression, for we are all divorced from life, we are all cripples, every one of us, more or less. We are so divorced from it that we feel at once a sort of loathing for real life, and so cannot bear to be reminded of it… Speak for yourself, you will say, and for your miseries in your underground holes, and don't dare to say all of us– excuse me, gentlemen, I am not justifying myself with that "all of us." As for what concerns me in particular I have only in my life carried to an extreme what you have not dared to carry halfway, and what's more, you have taken your cowardice for good sense, and have found comfort in deceiving yourselves. So that perhaps, after all, there is more life in me than in you. Look into it more carefully! Why, we don't even know what living means now, what it is, and what it is called? Leave us alone without books [read: social media] and we shall be lost and in confusion at once. We shall not know what to join on to, what to cling to, what to love and what to hate, what to respect and what to despise. We are oppressed at being men–men with a real individual body and blood, we are ashamed of it, we think it a disgrace and try to contrive to be some sort of impossible generalised man. We are stillborn, and for generations past have been begotten, not by living fathers, and that suits us better and better. We are developing a taste for it. Soon we shall contrive to be born somehow from an idea." – Fyodor Dostoyevsky
(Do you guys think that I am wise and cultured because I can copy and paste??)
I am an insecure person, and so are you. Twitter and facebook exist because we like to brag about ourselves. It is hard for us to write blogs without worrying about how many people will read them, what they are going to think of us, or how many comments we will receive. It is hard for us to write blog posts without preaching at others, or showing off how much of the Bible we can quote. But let's try our best, huh guys? Let's approach every blog with the prayer and hope that our motives will glorify God, not ourselves.
So hear we are, my friends. I'm about to click submit (SPOILER ALERT), and when I do, two things are going to happen:
1) I'll feel like a hypoocrite for using a blog post to criticize blog posts.
2) Most people who read this and don't know me will decide that I'm kind of a tool.
But the truth is that I am not a tool; I’m just tired of being the only one in on the joke.
My name is Jeff; it's very nice to meet you all.
P.S. To R-Squad: Despite the negative tone of this post, I am genuinely looking forward to getting to know all of you guys, and please don't take this as me judging you! I know that I am a little cynical, but I promise that I'm a nice(ish) guy once you get to know me…
P.P.S. Are these emoticons some kind of sick prank? Look at this….
Is this for real? If an emoticon can't even put on a decent smile, what hope is there for a guy like me?
