7.~~~~~~~~ revised 12-08

At least for now, no one would arrive at this blog except as I direct them individually, and any others to whom they might suggest it. Its location is something of a secret--the formally incorrect spelling in the address alone does something to hide it from those who might otherwise stumble onto it. Its readers then form something of an intentional community rather than a conventional readership; chances are they would know each other, as consumers of writing who scan the blogrolls would not. This is a peculiar relation for writing to have with others, on the border between the one-of-a-kind letter and the text directed to an anonymous audience. As with more accessible blogs, it is facilitated by the internet, the technology that has finally challenged the book. Despite the huge advance of the internet, however, our culture still defines the book as the medium of the most serious writing. Publishers are constrained by economics to be selective, and cultural seriousness means that someone more knowledgeable or at least more powerful than the reader has pre-selected the text. On the other hand, the democratic internet God accepts all, and so has weakly challenged the idea that anything can be serious. Rather it joins market democracy in celebrating each offering as worthy and so equally unworthy. With one hand it giveth opportunity to the writer while the other taketh away presumed value.

The writing of my blog is like a series of letters, yet it is written not in a manner addressed to specific friends but as if offered to anyone. The reader of a letter is a specific you, distinguished from the writer, I whereas in writing for anonymous others, when readers are referred to they will generally be joined with the writer in the universals we or one. Those to whom I've offered the writing of this blog most likely have personal knowledge of me, as in the letter form. However, I am not speaking out of that personal relation but rather creating something in the presence of my friends. Art, whether primarily material or mental, is created for human beings, available to friends, perhaps, but in their existence as humans. Here, this individual you know is attempting to speak to the nature of things, just as any book writer of non-fiction would do, and can be held accountable. So in this form friend and human being are joined; there is this one person speaking, but he displaces himself from the personal relationship in order to think outside that immediacy, and might lead you to do the same. Even though we are not in the same room, we find ourselves thinking together, as intimate as a house concert. This approaches the relationship of friendship known to Socrates and takes a detour around the notion of philosophy that has evolved in the West, confined to elevated and depersonalized texts presented to anonymous others, just as music has evolved in relation to the abstracted audience. I have no objection to this, I merely operate as a writer outside the circle of published writers/anonymous readers as I am outside the ranks of the music world as a musician.

Writing separated from the act of writing, thought separated from the act of thinking, and music separated from the making of music, are all forms of abstraction. The substitution of the object for the activity encourages the further separation of those acting from those receiving, subjects receiving objects. This abstraction creates an audience rather than listeners, students rather than co-creators, a readership rather than readers. In a small way--and all creating is small, concrete in time and place--the form of writing/giving I am engaging here is an attempt to deal with these forms of separation, to heal the painful breaches I face in myself and to offer what I am at this moment coming to understand in my thinking. Like the forms of musical communication I prefer, it is the outcome of the desire I have as I create, to be fully present to myself and to others at the same time. This is a desire in myself, but perhaps it engages something vital in others--in you.

I began by saying “at least for now.” That would also hold true for all the thought and decisions of this writing; thought may be worked through to an extreme degree but in the end it is always “at least for now“. Unlike a book, which has reached a finished point all at once when it is released to the printer, the blog encourages writer and reader alike to think of each entry as a short chapter, complete at the moment it is uploaded, but awaiting the next installment. It is not thought which is frozen but the medium, allowing us the pause to take it in, to respond and for the writer perhaps to recoil, move, shift. Seeing one’s writing as a text is not an end but another beginning; following the nature of thought it will continue to evolve and dispute itself. There is no point when thinking is done with, only temporary arbitrations, articulations, lacking any guarantee of progress or protection from betrayals. Thinking is learning how to think; writing is learning how to write; playing is learning how to play—and that is my standard expression, and at least for now I can’t do any better.  ¶ 6:48 AM