Recently (as in, for six months or so) I've been thinking about the explosion of internet material, access, usage, personal pages and the proliferation of personal information. MySpace, Facebook, even Blogger.com, and a slew of other sites offer anyone with appropriate know-how and access to offer the world a glimpse into his or her mind. I know several folks who post regularly, pouring out their hearts, minds, and daily occurrences to any number of the millions who may stumble upon their rantings.
So I began thinking, "Maybe it's high time I establish my own presence on the internet, let the world know what's going on in my brain and sphere of influence." And then the dilemma: I'm rather private and prefer not to chronicle my daily activities, unless something terribly interesting, or even seemingly mundane, happens. So here we are. If you're still reading, now we're getting to the meat of this thing.
Pictures: As mentioned, I'm private. Unless you know me personally, there's really no reason you need to know what I look like. It's irrelevant. And the eyes, well, there's a saying that goes, "Eyes are the windows to your soul." The folks who generously donated their eyes to this project knew what they were offering and even a little bit of why. Some of them may have even inspired an entry or two. And there are a couple of great songs about eyes and their importance that have prompted me in this direction. First, there's a Cincinnatian named David Wolfenberger who has a song called "Closing My Eyes" that deals with experiencing the world and how heavily we rely on our eyes in order to do that. Another is a song by the Original Harmony Ridge Creekdippers (That's a mouthful!) that actually has the line "Eyes are the window to your soul." And they follow this with a great question: "What does it show?" So that's sort of the point behind the eyeball pictures--What sort of emotion can you, the viewer, (or I, the writer) get from these eyes? There are, of course, a few other reasons, but I'll keep those for another time.
Content: I was explaining this project to my wife earlier. She asked something along the lines of, "If you're not keeping some sort of online journal of events like a teenager spilling his guts to any one of a million readers, what are you writing about?" Well, let's see. My first, as perhaps easiest, answer is that I'll be writing essays on the human condition, prompted by everyday occurrences. Also, I'm doing this to keep me writing. In essence, if I tell people I'm writing a blog (and those folks read it), it will challenge me to be more disciplined in maintaining it.
And with that, I welcome you here. I appreciate and welcome your comments (though I reserve the right to delete them). Hopefully we'll all learn something through this process.
