At left: The Bottom Line Band entertained us a couple of weeks ago, and I apologize for not posting their photo until now. I am nothing if not prompt!The heat index in upstate South Carolina is a whopping 105 degrees... which I knew even before they told me.
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Announcement: As of this month, I have been blogging FIVE YEARS!
It is unbelievable. I never thought it would last this long. I remember wondering if I would even make it a whole year, and then, could I make it to the second? How on earth did that turn into FIVE years?
I am not the same person I was when I started.
We change and evolve constantly. I have a new understanding and appreciation for people who delete blogs and start new ones, as well as those who stop blogging altogether. It feels as if the old posts no longer represent us, and they can actually embarrass us. Our personal evolution, for good or ill, is there for everyone to see and judge. For example, all of my Christian posts are intact and continue to be linked by Christians, some of whom still contact me. All sorts of opinions and political views I no longer hold are presented here, and I have even made total reversals on some issues. (Is this proof I am indecisive and wishy-washy, or open-minded and continuing to learn?)
Changing our minds is something we all do, but I have a detailed record of my various mind-changes, and most people don't.
We always want our narrative to fit who we think we are at any given time. This is why Orwell's account of revisionist history in 1984 (i.e.: "Oceania has always been at war with Eastasia") makes such an emotional impact on us: We do exactly that type of reality-rewrite, often. If we decide someone or something is bad, we like to say we knew it all along. We search our pasts and come up with evidence that we should have paid attention to; we tell ourselves we never DID trust that person/cause/brand/job/car/town/public figure in the first place, and next time, we will follow our instincts. But this isn't true at all. We are trying to minimize the pain of disappointment, as well as our feelings of embarrassment for our faulty judgment. We try to cover up our gullible natures or our desire to think the best of people, all because we want them to like us too. When it all backfires, we feverishly look for the reasons, the various just-so stories that make us feel better.
But alas, blogging makes us tell the truth. The past is right here, in technicolor, and I can't lie about it.
In some ways, this can become unbearable... which is why I think so many people delete their blogs. It is as if you have no control over your own autobiography and how it will be interpreted. In other ways, it can be very freeing: here I am, no pretense and no phony baloney (as my grandmother, namesake of this blog, would say).
In 2010, I posted very sparingly and had a spiritual crisis. I didn't really know what I should say about that, so I haven't said too much. If I had to name the major difference between Christianity and Buddhism, I think it would be how Christianity exhorts us to share the "Good News" (Gospel), whereas Buddhism mostly counsels us to shut up.
But that would be the major transformation over the past few years. Although I defended Christianity vociferously when I first started blogging, I ended up jumping ship myself.
If you don't think that isn't embarrassing, think again.
But that's me, and that's how it happened. To start a new blog acting like I was always in possession of spiritual truths that I only recently discovered, would simply be false. That isn't who I am.
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I have wondered if blogging is becoming extinct, and perhaps it is. I plow onward out of habit, and because there are facts posted here that haven't been posted anywhere else. I am a great believer in keeping careful records, and I am always amazed by how so much was left unrecorded back in the day. I look up various events from the past and can find no accounts of them, or maybe only one lone photo or abbreviated news account. My advice to all baby-boomers is to start posting your photos and history, especially pre-internet history.
The glut of camera-phones now is basically the OPPOSITE of what so many of us remember: no photos at ALL of so many important days in our lives. So much lost.
Our memories count, too, so tell your stories. Write them down. In reading over my own blog, I am so often struck by the passing details, as well as vivid ones. I remember the storm in this photo; I remember Social Distortion's version of "Ring of Fire"; I remember my granddaughter's week-long visit with me. My blog is like a mental photo album, an emotional and spiritual map of where I have been.
I would blog even if nobody read it. As small blogs dwindle in importance, it may likely come to that. But I would still post the updates.
After all, something really important might happen. :)