I had a strange dream last night. I dreamed that I was in a dark basement, and ran into a figure. Instinctively, I emitted an inhuman, threatening growl. When I looked more closely, I could see that the figure was my old french roommate, franck, and that he was crying and shaking with fear. I put my hand on his shoulder, and started speaking french. I said something like, 'alors, franck! C'est moi, matthieu! N'ete pas perdu!' he calmed down a little bit, but was still frightened. He managed a little shaky smile.
It an empowering dream. Instead of being scared by the closet-monster in the dark, I had become the monster. My new concern wasn't protecting myself, but rather making sure others weren't terrified of me.
Horror. Horror has a face. And you must make a friend of horror. Horror and moral terror are your friends. If they are not then they are enemies to be feared. They are truly enemies.
It could be about either of or a combination of two things: 1) realizing that I am a powerful being and that I have nothing to fear, 2) that I am a powerful being and I have to be careful of my behavior around others.
I think everyone needs to become the monster to a degree. Tonight, I'm going to an organ concert. Tomorrow, I'm going on a hike on the potomac. Aren't I cultured and active?
I read in my server logs that many people have been accessing my blog a lot lately. So, I feel sort of bad about not updating. But, who cares?
I sort of realized that blogs are largely junk, that they don't really provide any useful information. This is not entirely true -- I often talk about things that aren't related to personal rants. But most of the time, I'm just talking bullshit about what happened to me today, or how I feel about this or that. Certainly not useful public information. I think this is why some people sort of react hostilely to blogs: they don't constitute public information, which is supposed to be the cornerstone of the web. The 'personal shrine' website doesn't really do anyone any good, except maybe the ego of its author.
But really -- I'm not totally guily here. I've posted lots of things that I think are pretty interesting, that can be found within the fecal outpouring of most of my blogging. Because it really is almost total crap. I don't know how other people use the web, but I generally like information to pertain to me -- it's very likely that the current status of my psychoactive medication does not pertain to you, unless you are my psychiatrist or have to live with me.
The sad fact about websites, something every usability designer knows, is that NOBODY CARES ABOUT THEM. Especially not for longer than 30 seconds, to retrieve this or that tidbit of information from weather.com or mapquest.com. The only way a person will care about a website and exhibit more than a passing, 30-second fact-retrieval interest in it is if they are mentioned in it or they designed it.
The web is largely ignored -- especially rants like these. It's doubtful many people, if anyone, will even read this far down. But, I'm offering a special deal. Email me (barnacle at beevomit dot org) and I will MENTION YOU ON THE WEB. I might even draw a picture of you. You will be a celebrity, and have a reason to check my blog! Of course, if no one is checking my blog to begin with because they aren't mentioned in it, I don't expect to get any emails. But, whatever. I know that a few people read my blog, but I just don't know to what extent they read it, or how interested in it they are. They might just be checking for some particular thing that interests them, or be checking for pictures.
Pesh's brother told me that my most interesting blogs are emotional rants and exposes on my life -- the kind of stuff that one would assume would give an author pause to reveal. But for whatever reason, even though this is the 'world wide web', I'm not all that sensitive to this kind of public revelation and undermining of what I think is a pretty standard level or privacy. Perhaps this is why I don't like people talking to my about my blog. That way, I can make a big pouting, sulking emotional demonstration of myself on the web, but don't have to deal with any direct questions. I tried to start an 'ask matt' column before, and even made a photo to go along with it, but only one person replied. The offer still stands -- if you have a question for 'ask matt', I'll try to respond. I just don't like it when 'ask matt' ends up over the telephone in a one-to-one conversation. That makes me uncomfortable. Generally, people make me uncomfortable. I like them on the internet, where I can readily control them and their access. I often get offended when the phone or doorbell rings -- what gives the caller the right to burst into the silent air of my home and solace with an intrusive noise?
However, I think this is my control-freakishness talking, as well as my fundamentally hermetic nature. I simply don't like the fact that the doorbell or phone can just RING at any time, and I have no way of predicting it or controlling it. I imagine a lot of scientists, who are the most OCD freaks on the planet, feel the same way.
Anyway, I took out what I thought were the most interesting blogs, and put them into folders as text files. I'd like to organize them further, put some of them together, edit some of them, write introductions for the new composite essays, and post them all on my main site as a revamp for my writing section there. But, it's a slow process, and requires a lot of analytical reading of my own stuff. So, we'll see if it ever gets done. But I finished cannibalizing interesting blogs, including such miscellaneous blogs as 'why I hate cats' and 'the taboo of the human bite.' I think some of them are interesting.
I guess I'll just keep blogging, whenever the mood strikes me. But I can't guarantee interesting content. Yes, I may very well be polluting the web with my egotistical rambling, serving no one with pertinent information. But, I paid for this server space (sort of), and I'm going to use it for personal expression, however lame or irrelevant to the rest of society that may be. Read it if you want -- I'd sort of prefer if you didn't, actually. I think the reason I like to publish (v. To make public) as opposed to write in some grease-stained diary notebook is that it lends some feeling of importance to my journal-writing. But, this could be bullshit, and maybe I really do want people to read my public offering of 'self.' or maybe I don't -- I really don't know. I think it's obvious that I have mixed feelings about the whole thing. It helps that I'm not writing to wone person in particular, but rather to the whole of society.
The web has sort of turned to junk, consisting largely of advertisements, pornography and people's alters to themselves, with a notable exception or two (wikipedia.org). I guess I feel sort of guilty that I'm not doing anything to fix the web, but am rather breaking it further. At least there aren't any advertisements on this webspace.