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I don't like to write about love, at least not in a tangible Real Life kind of way. I can't name names, won't chronicle relationship ups and downs in anything more than abstract splashes of emotion. This has gotten me in trouble on more than one occasion, but I firmly believe that spewing the gritty details onto the Internet cheapens them, cheapens everything.

I think that maybe people face-deep in codependance lose their grip, their understanding, of what their friends and readers want from their blog. When you sit down and gleefully write a post about what you and your boyfriend ate for breakfast, you aren't doing anyone any favours. You're wasting everyone's fucking time. I can understand that surely this topic was worthwhile to you, or you wouldn't have taken the time to log into Livejournal. Or maybe you just noticed that you hadn't updated in a while and forced out an update that unfortunately turned into a tragic synopsis of your meals, or an uncouth blast-pack of your latest woes:

OMG i am so sad right now i loved this girl and now she's gone. she walked out of my life and I didnt want to touch Shelly her friend but i was drunk and shes a slut and KELLY IF UR READING THIS I NEED YOU <3

ps i wont push you down the stairs anymore we can have the baby i promise

It's just not working, it's not evolving at all. If I am going to have any kind of faith in this exploding blog movement, this Frankenstein blogosphere of expression and public living, I need some reason to believe that valuable insight and beautiful prose will burgeon out of even the most mundane lives. I need to know that we'll eventually step beyond Dear Diary and into the questions Why? and How? and glorious, sobbing text that tells a story deeper than Wheaties in the Mornings. Everyone starts at the bottom but there's no excuse for staying there forever.

I can't tell you what to do with your blog - well, I guess I can but you don't have to listen. You probably won't and I don't blame you - who am I to judge? I suck. You have as much right as I do to vent and hate and overflow with joy. But a million fingers typing a million unskilled sentiments is bound to impact our culture. A million uninspired blogs about a million clumsy closet loves will inevitably, invariably, take our conception of love and shred it into a million tiny paper pieces. The Internet is not harmless; it traffics ideas, negotiates definitions, defines our ideals. If the romantics could see us now, they'd burn our world to cinders.

Well they'd try, with their torches and furious righteousness, and then some F-16s would bomb them impassionately. But at least they'd try. And I realize, even now, that I'm ridiculously doing the same thing; shouting about a bunch of idiots riding the blog-train ruining love and I'm not making any real sense. There's no logic in a Save Our Love campaign. The only conclusion is to fall apart.

a a;lkO lkajfF.kgs

crushed against the traffic light
the best thing you could've said
is that you're fucked up

Posted by Chris at 10:53 PM >> Commentations (6)