Still thinking through what it means to use our gifts (in my case writing, for example) to be a blessing to others. Every so often I feel this overwhelming need to justify my blog. It’s probably guilt because I assume I should be doing more writerly things on here. So here’s another reset on my blog.
Now, don’t get me wrong, blogging is sooooooo 2003, especially in the age of FaceBook and Twitter. There’s a discipline to writing and it’s probably the only disciplined thing I do in my life. I’ve watched my blog morph over the years. Lots of random essays (a smarter writer would just sell them) and for a long time a series on singleness and dating (which a smarter writer might have packaged as a non-fiction book … and sold). It’s pretty much whatever I’m thinking about at the time:
-writing related stuff (which at the moment would boil down to my incessant need to procrastinate with projects when there is no looming deadline)
-race related stuff (which considering that I’m leading a discussion on this topic at a church in a couple days would explain why various issues are on my mind)
-random interviews and profiles (which gives me an excuse to talk to interesting people)
-pop culture stuff (I still write reviews for HollywoodJesus.com)
-church/religion (every time I get out, they keep pulling me back in)
-life stuff (since the Interwebz are forever, I figure if I write enough gibberish, my kids can get a sense of how I think after I’m gone)
Again, a smarter writer might have spun these out into dedicated blogs. Especially when said writer is astutely aware of the fact that he has two very different audiences: one largely comprised of followers of his spiritual musings; the other a fan of his fiction (with the two usually overlapping at Mo*Con)
But I’m lazy.
So I can get all angst-ridden about this being more writerly, even though I know that it is. I write about the stuff that interests me and undergirds the worlds I run in. Plus, if I’m thinking about it enough for it to end up in a blog, chances are it is a theme in whatever fiction I’m writing.
No – I *like* your "Pontifications" blog, Maurice! And Twitter sux: it's so analphabetic!
Yes and Maurice: about the job loss situation; which has obviously so sorely tried your wife too – 2 bombshells at once; and I don't know about US (it didn't say on Alternet) but Europe and the UK are already supposed to be out of recession: still we all know about "jobless recoveries"! But what I'm saying is that now is the PERFECT time to blog about your own personal job (loss) experience: plenty of national and international interest in such subjects; and of course now that it has come to pass you need not worry about worsening your situation with free speech! (And were it ME..oh you must know I like to speak badly of past bosses and crappy jobs; but you know that's because I'm Lokean and evol..) I think this is a good time to tempt you to "dish the dirt"! Just imagine Michael Moore is in front of you with a microphone! (No don't!) But.. actually I think now might be the time for one of those cool, reasoned, personally relevant yet detached posts you sometimes do.. all about what happened at work.
Like about how you lost it. What you were told at the time. What you believe the real reasons were.. About the "problems at work" you tight-lippedly alluded to in previous months. (This is stuff a large audience can relate to – and this is where *you* get to be the "wronged party", unlike with the "other thing"!) About your (20-yr? really?) career in science; about the pros and cons of the job and whether you would like either of your sons to go into the same field. Now can I ask you a probing question? If you saw (see?) yourself as both scientist and artist, then why did none of your sites, older or newer, link to scientific or technical sites: like, say, Popular Mechanics (yes I know you're not an engineer), howstuffworks, amsci or amasci, both of the latter good sites, the latter my favourite (love the section about the maverick scientists who were rejected!) can't remember link: Google "amasci"! Or New Scientist or Nature or.. just trying to think of all with a strong biology content. Don't hide yr light!
actually, you've largely covered a lot of what the issue was with my job. i went into a depression last year, no longer did good work, got fired. not a matter of crappy bosses or co-workers or even a crappy job. i can't even make the claim of being the wronged party. personally, i'd have fired me years ago.
i had no passion for the job which i also fully realized while re-evaluating my life last year. it didn't interest me (thus my lack of links and i think, all told, of the 1300+ blogs i've done, only one had been about my job and i didn't plan on starting now).
if my boys want to go into science, they're more than welcome to. as long as they do it because they love it and not to please someone else.
This is one of your brutally honest days! That's fascinating actually, what you just said. So, you no longer had any passion for the work; maybe never were that interested.. and it took you a long time to find that out! (But you mustn't feel bad about it; for a lot of the world work only to earn money; maybe the vast majority. It's what Marx called alienation, luv!) I did (long) wonder about the lack of science links and science talk (see: those of Loki are sharp and notice!); yet then there were the statements which I noticed also which said you felt yourself to be a man of both art and science. Can this be untrue? I felt it might be another of the strange skewed(!) parallels I have sensed between you and me: where you took a path I failed to follow and regretted not being able to do so; for my first love was science and I had a little Thomas Salter microscope at the age of six; also a chemistry set (which I was rarely allowed to use fully as my mother was afraid of fires); and an electricity set: that was
me covering the three main disciplines of science aged 6-7! (I never had one of those theriope sets though; and I wanted to make a crystal garden but didn't have the right chemical crystals.) The problem for me as budding scientist was that science simply wasn't formally taught at British state schools till a much later age group; not till secondary level (I think they have taken some steps to remedy this now but whatever they are, too little, too late, I say! It's the one thing I intend to write to that Dawkins about – and he'd better take me seriously!) There's me interested at infant school; and in junior school you're lucky to study caterpillars turning into butterflies! (*And* teach wouldn't tell me how it metamorphosed inside the chrysalis – probably because he didn't know; yet that's exactly the question an intelligent 9-yr-old will ask! Oh the burden of being intellectually ahead!) Really I needed a place at one of those schools for gifted kids; there are hardly any in GB; no "fast tracks" either!
Yes: so my enthusiasm was left to wither on the vine! Junior school is the time when they get you interested in musical hobbies; and while encouraging one of my talents that was already apparent (singing &an; ear for music) – you're not going to be able to do *that* professionally ('less as a pop singer – not my bag) unless you go to stage school – guess what – they're all private! (Though I think the UK govt has tried to open a few Fame-style academies since.) So by the time of secondary school I was boxed into doing arts-degree type subjects (which is what they really wanted all girls to do: trouble is, these don't lead to as high-paying careers; and in times of economic hardship, they often lead to *no* career: still, what would the baby-boomer teachers/politicians care about THAT?! It's all that generation's fault you know: they've wrecked society – or rather reformed it incompletely, which is where the trouble lies!) Anyway: so now I am bitter and twisted; and have been long-nursing the non-development of
my talent(s). My one consolation, for the "practical" part of my nature, were British children's comics, which were very humorous and full of ideas for practical jokes, all eagerly lapped up by me! (And if I tell him *where* I first got access to those comics he won't believe me: or else he will, which might be a problem! They certainly weren't on my mother's approved list!) Mm. I might have even considered a career in *those* if they hadn't wrecked the industry in the mid-80s. Tip: I don't consider Judge Dredd & the scribings of Alan Moore as British comics. Why? Because they're not funny! But anyone could see I was an inventive child! My independent project at 8 yrs old was a concept of which I am still proud: it was called "instant pong" and was intended to be some kind of super-stinkbomb: lacking chemicals however, I attempted to manufacture this essence from chicken dung and pond water! It was worth a try. There was no Internet, of course (some cracking "recipes" on there!) nor kid inventions programmes:
had there been, I might by now be rich, famous – or in jail! This is turning out to be one of my "feat." labyrinths again, isn't it? (Still – wouldn't you have wanted me in your kid gang – girl or no?!) That's one reason I mentioned the job creating stinks for the theme park exhibit..actually at one time, that would have been *my* dream job! Would you apply or is it too much organic chemistry? You never did say – though I previously tried to ask – what your job actually entailed: how you or your boss could know therefore when you were doing good work! (With smells it's easy: people either go "mmm" or "ugh"!) So whither now – science journalism/editing? Events organising? I'll tell you one reason I always thought you went for a career in science, besides a psychoanalytic one: it was to beat discrimination! (And that would've been my consideration as a female, had I got that far.) I'm not saying science is free of discrim. against blacks and women. But it's an area with measurable results to obtain rewards, no?
Yay! He liked it! (My last communication crossed with your action.)
[...] because of the stories I’m writing. I’ve mentioned (not TOO defensively, mind you) before how my blog IS a writer’s blog because it’s the blog of a writer, mostly just the thoughts of a writer more than “how to” tips from [...]
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