Keepin' It Real... Maybe?

So I just became very conscious of my self as the author of this blog. As I wonder if there are things that I won't write I realize this isn't really a journal. Or at least, it's not what I thought a journal should be. I used to have journals that I would write all kinds of nonsense in. I told people close to me that I wanted them destroyed when I died. I imagined that gave me a freedom to write whatever I wanted; I thought that's what a journal should be. But this isn't that. Not only because I censor myself, but because you're reading it. But then if nobody ever read those journals then they still aren't much more than my thoughts.

Some people seem to think that blogging is democratized self-expression in that it gives anyone with a computer and internet access the ability to express who they are or what they think for whatever reason they might have for that. I did/do it for entirely selfish reasons. I want to rant to the ether. But I don't know if I am. I mean am I really doing the talking? And the me you read is only kind of me. So who are we in the blogging? Is there even a we, or is it just me over here and you over there?

"What are you talking about, you're just you, I'm just me." Well of course you are, who else could you be? But I mean the me that's writing this right now, I am aware of as a me that might be a little different from the I that is the subject of this sentence. Well, here I'll make it clearer. I write this blog. I am the subject and the blog is the object that receives my action. "I" needs some type of predicate, not only grammatically, but actually. I write. Otherwise there is just some "I" that does nothing- and even doing nothing is something. I mean you can't have an I without some type of expression that is predicated upon that subject. Without the predicate you just have "I" and that doesn't make sense. That says a little bit more. I write and in that a little something is known about the subject. But what do I write? I write this blog and in so doing reveal more about the subject. I, as a subject, am dependent upon my blog, and in turn the object, my blog, is dependent upon me. This is how the subject is known- through its relationship to the object.

So though they are different things, the I and the blog, they are dependent things- though the blog is more dependent on me than vice versa. In general, I am dependent on a predicate. In this instance, I know myself to be an object as much as a subject. That is, I know that I write this blog, so the process of relating myself to an object is also an object of something else. Wait, what? Okay, the whole paragraph above reveals that I am not only known, in this particular instance, through my writing, that is in the relation of the subject to object, but I am aware of that relation.

And then there's you- or your "I." You say, "I read this blog (though maybe not for much longer)." You're the subject of that and the blog is the object that gets read. But in addition to that you are reading about me. So like above, there is an I that is an object to you- the I that you imagine to be me in reading.

So there is an objective me for both of us- that would be Skybalon. The me you know, or the me that you think is the subject "I," depends upon what is expressed in the blog. So from your perspective, if you think of me at all, you think of the "I" that is revealed in my writing. We both think of the I that writes but also of the I that is revealed by what I write. But then there's a bit of a filter to what I write. So the me that is an objective me created in the writing is only kind of me because I can't or won't express everything that is internal to me either practically or intentionally

So on the one hand it's kind of false because it's not all of me that's thrown out there into the ether, or to you. On the other hand it's all that you can know of me so in that way it really is who I am. As far as that goes anyway.

So where are we in that? I think there is only a we insofar as we relate to Skybalon as an "object," but I don't think there is a we in the same way there might be if we actually interacted in a more "subjective" way. Like "We play soccer." Maybe that's the point of blogging, or maybe that's my point. It's a distant intimacy. I'm not saying that I am intentionally deceiving you. But I guess, in addition to whatever barriers I would place by choosing what to say, there is a limit to the "knowing" words themselves allow.

Sorry- I guess I'm not keeping it real. But don't worry, I'm narcissistic enough to keep it up.

An Actual Playlist
Kid A- Radiohead
The Inlaw Josie Wales- Phish
South Bound Suarez- Led Zeppelin
River Euphrates- The Pixies
Leaving Babylon- Bad Brains
Golden Slumbers- The Beatles
The Acid Queen- The Who
Beautiful World- Devo
Underdog- Butthole Surfers (Butthole is a funny word)
Murray- Pete Yorn
Didn't It Rain- Mahalia Jackson
Freddie Freeloader- Miles Davis