To blog or not to blog, that is the question...

I’M beginning to wonder what this whole business of blogging is all really about and, more to the point, what I personally am doing it for. And whether - and this is the bottom line - anyone is actually reading my blog. And if not, if my blog is in fact my best kept secret, is it any better than the paper diary I used to keep many years back, which if I were to have left lying about the house would probably have been read by more people than my blog, which is supposed to be an online diary or journal open to thousands and thousands of potential readers, or at least that is the theory of it. The reality is often very different, it would seem.

IT'S difficult to understand how some blogs have hundreds if not thousands of so-called followers and others, like mine, just a pitiful handful; how some blogs receive a whole series of comments on each post and others, like mine again, seem to pass unnoticed and unremarked like a sigh in the desert. What makes some blogs so popular, so read, so commented on, while others languish in a sort of limbo-land of neglect and abandonment apparently unseen, unread and unremarked? It’s perhaps not as obvious a question as you might think.

I have recently looked into this matter myself, not in any extensive or systematic way, just by way of curiosity in an attempt to understand what makes a blog popular, and quite frankly it has left me more confused than ever. There are some blogs that are so shallow and insubstantial or that deal with the everyday trivialities of a person’s life, or recount a catalogue of numbing sexual conquests and alcoholic excesses and yet have a following of several hundreds or in excess of a thousand. And there are other blogs which are full of useful information, thought-provoking content, well-argued opinions, interesting images, and yet appear to languish in crushing obscurity, with few if any followers and with hardly a comment on any of the posts.

SO what’s going on? Is it to do with the blogger’s social background, networking activities,  number of contacts in general? Does his blog have a large number of followers because many of them are friends, work colleagues, relatives, business contacts, friends of friends and friends of colleagues and all the rest of it? This might explain the exponential growth of followers, a sort of mouth-to-mouth referral of the blog and a consequent accretion of more and more followers joining on recommendation. Once a blog has attracted a goodly number of followers, there seems to be a kind of snowball effect which attracts more and more like bees to honey, as new visitors assume that since the blog already has so many acolytes it must be exceptional and therefore worth following. One might compare it to a brawl in the street. A few people gather round to see what all the commotion is about and before you know it there’s a whole crowd of bystanders witnessing the event. An initial interest, generated in some manner or other, builds up momentum which leads to more and more interest.

WHATEVER the process at work, which favours some blogs and not others, and which seems to have bypassed my blog, the quality of the writing or even the content of the blog, does not really seem to be a factor, as I’ve already said. You can see the untidiest and scruffiest of blogs, full of random jottings and confusing gadgets and widgets and the like, with nothing really of any substance to say, and it may have a following of hundreds or more. Whether of course all these followers are actually reading it would be open to question as some people, especially youngsters with a strong herd instinct, will join just about anything that’s going!

NOW you may think this is all sour grapes on my part, and you would probably be right! It certainly begs the question why I write a blog and I have to admit that the answer that comes back is not a straightforward one. I certainly get pleasure out of the actual act of writing, putting my thoughts down “on paper”, as it were, creating something and illustrating it with suitable images, but if I am true to myself my answer would also include the fact that I like the thought of other people reading my blog, having access to my thoughts and opinions, perhaps going to the trouble to comment on my views and even express some appreciation of my writings.

HAVING said that, it brings me full circle to the way I began this post. If no-one, or as good as no-one, is reading my blog, why should I bother at all? After all, it’s been years since I gave up keeping a private journal, as I wearied of just doing something which did not involve anyone else and which only I knew about (at least while i was still alive!). A lot of bloggers, if they are honest about it, would not be writing anything at all or at least would not be keeping any sort of regular journal were it not for the opportunity that online blogging affords them of being read by others, receiving feedback and perhaps being appreciated from time to time.

WELL, folks, there you have it. I’ve said what I had to say about that and I don’t suppose I will hear anything from anyone about it or that anyone will even get to read it. Obviously, there are bloggers out there outclassing me hands down and soaking up all the followers, and my humble blogging efforts are as nothing compared to their apocalyptic outpourings. Bitter? You bet I am! However, be that as it may and notwithstanding my disappointment to-date, I will soldier on in the steadfast belief that I may yet be read by someone out there in cyberspace or, more accurately, the blogosphere, and even build up a decent following before I end up doing as I did with my paper diary and throwing in the towel once and for all! It all depends on you, my fellow bloggers, out there. Are you going to let me languish in limbo or are you going to give me the fillip I need to keep this blog up till I finally take my leave of this world? My fate is in your hands, cybernauts!

The Celebrity Culture

Perhaps one of the worst things about our world today, in my estimation, is the all-pervasive, wall-to-wall, round-the-clock celebrity culture that dominates so much of our society, much more than it ever did in the past thanks to our modern means of instant mass communication. Singers, actors, sportsmen and public performers of all kinds represent the new pantheon of gods of our age and we pay them the homage we are led to believe is their due. These are the quintessential idols of the 20th century before whom we prostrate ourselves. We praise them, honour them, extol them, and worship at their altar, holding them up as paragons of humanity. Lacking the awe-inspiring super-heroes, real and mythical, of ancient Greece and Rome, having foresaken the prophets of old, these are their modern-day equivalents. Somehow I feel we have lost out in the exchange.

Today the Industry of the Vain is healthier than ever. A huge number of individuals who are pretty-much useless to society in practical terms are rewarded with astronomical sums for singing, acting or practising sport. It is thought that they must be richly compensated for playing games and essentially doing what they love to do because, obviously, they would not do what they love to do if they were not paid for it, would they? By contrast we pay chicken-feed to those workers who keep our society and our bodies functioning, whilst we pay a bunch of self-absorbed hedonists fortunes for prancing about on a stage and singing out of tune, or pretending to be someone they are not in a film, or kicking a round object about a field. Those who provide the indispensable services without which our society would fall apart overnight and those who nurse and treat us without which we ourselves would fall apart are paid pittances and have to struggle to survive.

The rows of palatial mansions that line the verdant boulevards in Beverley Hills and Hollywood in general are an eloquent testimony to what we prize in today’s world and who we reward the most. If you are a pop singer, a movie actor, a footballer, we will ensure that you have a grand lifestyle that befits your status as a useless member of society but if you are a teacher, a nurse or a bus-driver you will be treated with the contempt you deserve and your wages will reflect this. If you are doing something you enjoy and which basically is a game or a pretence, then riches are your reward, but if you are providing an essential service to society, expect low wages, long hours and hard times. (If you are a banker, of course, you will be helping yourself to rich pickings in the way that only bankers know and, providing your artifices and scams go undetected, you can expect to rake in millions over the course of your working life, followed by an exceedingly generous pension and retirement benefits to last you the rest of your selfish life – but that’s another story.)

Today our young people, not to mention the not so young, have as their life models and exemplars the products of the Industry of the Vain. Fame and fortune are the key words here, and shallowness and selfishness are their ugly sisters. We think people are wonderful because they are rich, because they have big houses and big cars, because they are physically handsome, because they sing or act or play sport, because they live the high life, have many lovers, go on lots of holidays, wear expensive clothes and jewellery – in other words, we admire them for all the wrong things. We praise the superficial and condemn the profound. Vanity is mistaken for value. As the saying goes, we know the price of everything and the value of nothing. Everyone wants instant fame and envies those who achieve it, even if it only lasts an instant!

This is borne out in the Big Brother series where people, young and old, famous or unknown, give us first-rate examples of selfishness, arrogance, greed, vanity, boorishness, gluttony, aggression, and self-indulgence. Unpleasant and distasteful individuals delude themselves into thinking that they are ‘precious worthies’ who should be loved and adored by everyone. Their inevitable petty arguments and brattishness expose them for what they really are and, had they just half a brain, they would have opted for the sensible course and stayed away from BB exposure in the first place. But, their overweening vanity and conviction of their own worth and their unquenchable thirst for fame, if not riches, leads them to join such a very public circus. And in the majority of cases, by the end of the whole charade, they have provided ample proof of what the kind of sorry individuals they are: pathetic self-adoring misfits whom no-one in their right mind would want to befriend outside the BB house!

But fame and fortune are not enough for the lovelies that make up the starry firmament of Hollywood and its round-the-world imitators. The ‘stars’ must have their corresponding dose of adulation and quota of accolades from peers and the public. They must have their public ceremonies recognising their services to... themselves... oops, sorry... I mean the film and music industries, the performing arts, etc etc. They must be given awards, prizes and trophies, and speeches must be made to let the world in general know what wonderful wonderful darlings they all are: kind, modest, generous, big-hearted, worthy individuals with a heart of gold. Prizes are handed out for Best This and Best That and Best Other. They all congratulate themselves, pat themselves on the back, tell each other what wonderful people they are, shed a few tears of emotion for their talents having at last been recognised by everyone and look forward to yet more award ceremonies that have sprouted up in recent decades to ensure that the greatness of all these Hollywood lovelies is duly

And this is the world we have created in the year of our Lord 2010. This is where Jesus’s teachings two thousand years ago have led, it would seem. This is the heritage we are leaving our children. This is the culmination of several thousand years of civilisation. All roads have led to this. The frenetic pursuit of fame and fortune would seem to run counter to all religious and moral precepts and teachings. The bloated celebrity culture we have today, the pursuit of money, the longing for public adulation and flattery, the sexual promiscuity, the loudness and brashness, the shallowness and fleetingness of everything, and the adoration of ostentation and excess would appear to represent all the evils that Jesus warned and railed against. Today we live in a godless and amoral (not to say 'immoral') society where Mammon rules worldwide. We believe in nothing, we have no moral convictions, no ethical foundation, no certainty of anything anymore. We have set before us all the wrong role models, all based on self-aggrandisement, self-promotion and self-enrichment at the expense of everything else and we are buffeted from side to side by the slightest cultural breeze or wave of fashion that is churned up by one or other group of self-interested individuals intent on making a fortune for themselves.

In conclusion, I would like to make one thing perfectly plain. Though I mention Jesus here, my intention is neither to promote religion or a belief in God or any god or to put forward any particular doctrine or dogma or argue for sexual abstinence or or any other practice. I am merely suggesting that we have created a society that is morally bankrupt, that has produced a celebrity culture which has set before us all the wrong role models based on pure materialism, greed, self-importance and self-advertisement. We have a society today in which it is apparently perfectly acceptable for a priest to come on a show where contestants endeavour to win thousands of pounds for themselves! How can this be squared with his calling, I wonder? How in God’s name can this be justified with reference to Jesus’s ministry on earth? I have not yet worked this one out and I think I never will.

My Friend George

Two years ago, this very month, my friend George passed away in hospital in the arms of his grief-stricken mother.

George and I had been friends since secondary school and, though we had had our ups and downs over the years, our friendship had stood the test of time and we had kept in close touch. But life had been less kind to my friend and in his later years he was plagued by constant ill health. He had been asthmatic since his teenage years and then put on a lot of weight which did not of course help his condition. But this was nothing to what awaited him in later life.

One fateful day he injured his foot. At the time, though it was painful, he just patched it up and thought nothing of it. But instead of healing after a few days it became apparent that it was getting worse. In no time the wound had deteriorated to the point where it turned septic and he was forced to seek medical help. Unfortunately, despite lengthy care and nursing of the infection, it stubbornly refused to heal. Quite the contrary, some months later it had started to spread up his leg and now he was having real problems in getting about.

Whilst this was going on, he began experiencing inexplicable bouts of faintness and dizziness, and upon medical examination he was given the terrible news that he had diabetes. This of course came as a great shock to him and his mother, but ever the pragmatist George soon settled into the routine of injecting himself daily with insulin. Years passed and the diabetes inexorably took its toll on his health in general but he soldiered on uncomplaining.

However, worse was to come. To the great dismay of everyone, the infection in his leg, perhaps facilitated by his poor health in general and his diabetes in particular (and, be it said, by some wrong-headed and clumsy handling on the part of visiting nurses), had not abated even after sustained treatment but instead had travelled further up his leg and he was now unable to walk without a crutch. Eventually, gangrene began to set in, and the doctors decided that there was nothing for it but to amputate his leg as far as the knee if his life was not to be endangered! And so it was that George lost part of his right leg.

For awhile after this it seemed that his condition had stabilised and that he was out of the woods. But it was not to be. His asthma was giving him problems again, his diabetes was gradually wearing him down, and his general health had taken a turn for the worse. Psychologically too he was in low spirits, as might be imagined. Within weeks he was back in hospital and on a saline drip to stabilise him and he was receiving other medication. He had been in and out of hospital a number of times, so we all thought that this was just another admission, that he would get the care and treatment he needed and be out again. How wrong we were, for he was not to leave the hospital again alive.

Me and my friend George in happier times

The final blow was to come from an unexpected quarter. Whilst he lay in his hospital bed with his mother at his side, he suffered sudden kidney failure and within minutes he was in a critical condition. By the time the doctors got round to trying to recover the situation, he was beyond all human help. Already weakened by diabetes and in a very poor physical and mental state of health, this was enough to send him over the edge and put an immediate end to his life, and so he slipped away there and then beyond the reach of us all.

And so it was that my lifelong friend George drew his last breath and expired in the arms of his tearful mother who had so loved her only child. Moments before his death, sensing that he was not going to make it, he thanked his mother for devoting her life to him, for loving and caring for him, and asked for her forgiveness for the times he had spoken harshly to her or had hurt her in any way. His last words to her were an entreaty to promise him that she would be strong and not fall apart after his death.

And I for one can confirm that she has kept her promise to this day. Despite her continuing grief, her old age and her loneliness, she has hung on, honouring the promise she gave to her dying son. She has been very brave and kept strong, though it is clear for anyone to see that there is a deep sadness in her soul which will remain till her dying day. She had indeed devoted her life to her son and he had reciprocated and now she was left with the memories of a life they had shared so intimately together and which was gone forever.

None of us had expected that George would go before his mother, especially given her advanced years. She had lost her husband quite early on, then her sister, then her brother. But the cruellest blow of all was to lose her son, for this went against the natural order of things. She had brought him into the world and now had had to see him leave it while she lingered on in her late eighties without the company of the child she had doted on for so many years. As a parent myself, I instinctively know that there is nothing worse in this world than a parent losing a child. And in many cases parents are left with a certain feeling of guilt that perhaps they could have done more to save their child.

The above illustrates, I think, that none of us can know when our time will come. And youth does not necessarily guarantee many years of life to come. Our fortunes can take a sudden downturn and before we know it our life has run its course. People behave today as though they will live forever, especially the young. The celebrity culture and materialistic ethos that govern our society in this day and age give us a false sense of invulnerability and immortality. The desire for fame and fortune is inculcated into each new generation at the expense of the deepeste truths and realities of our finite existence. But no-one is spared that final exit from everything and this is vividly brought home to us by the image of a grieving parent embracing the lifeless body of their beloved child, as in the case of my friend George and his mother.

With the untimely death of my lifelong friend George another chapter in my life came to a close too. Something akin to what happened when I lost my mother to illness many years ago. An era came to an end, fresh painful memories were born, and a painful awareness of the ever-present eventuality of death was accentuated. And so the world goes on.


Postscript: His mother passed away in hospital in November 2011 after a brief illness.

Bloggers and Blockheads

This post will most likely make me unpopular, assuming anyone reads my blog (and that is very open to question, as is the premise that I am popular and can therefore become unpopular), but one has to let off steam once in a while and this is one of those once-in-a-while times for me. So here goes...

It is only when you start blogging and see the variety of other blogs that are on offer that you realise how lucky you are to be coming across the authors of those blogs only virtually and not in real life. It seems that for every really interesting and worthwhile person out there there are a hundred self-important oddballs, dreary droning nerds, stuffy old farts, silly empty-headed teenagers and wearisome witless weirdos, all of whom think that they are sharing pearls of wisdom and nuggets of intuitive insight about the world we live in. And of course in 99% of cases they are not. You've heard it all before and a lot of it is simply about growing up and that's a phase we all go through, it's not only given to a select few. And it's probably all been said before, hundreds if not thouands of years ago!

The strange thing about all this is that a lot of these online oddities are probably normal humang beings in real life and you wouldn't guess what nonsense was going through their minds if they were not blogging. They look normal and act normal but when they are in blogging mode they turn into first-class loons or nutty nitwits determined to prove to the rest of us how precious they are by their words. It's a bit like car drivers. Most people who drive a car are perfectly normal decent and polite human beings, but put them behind the wheel and they turn into sadistic monsters raging against other motorists and uttering every kind of profanity known to man. As soon as they come out of their car, they are back to normality, Mr Hyde has changed back into Dr Jekyll and all is sweetness and light again. And so it is with many bloggers out there in the blogosphere.

There is every kind of blog you can imagine out there and there are peddlars for every imaginable idea and concept and for those you haven't even imagined yet. So much so that some blogs are so 'way out' that they are virtually unreadable and unintelligible and were you to be able to give advice to the author you might strongly recommend some psychotherapy as a matter of urgency. No wonder we have so many mentally sick people in society! Now, thanks to the Internet and sites like blogger this motley band of misfits (could I be one of them?!) are all able to parade their dark imaginings and twisted cravings online in an effort to win acolytes and pass on their lunacies to others.

I often trawl the blogosphere in search of choice blogs that truly inform and entertain and it has to be a labour of love on my part, since I have to sample scores and scores of blogs before stumbling on one that has something of substance to say and presents it in a tasteful and interesting context and with some thought for the reader. I am presuming here, of course, that the ultimate goal of any blogger worth his name is to get his blog read by others. This may possibly be a daring presumption on my part but I nevertheless believe it to be true for the most part, otherwise they could just as easily scribble their thoughts in an exercise book or notepad, as we used to do before the arrival of the Internet. It's a mammoth task to separate the wheat from the chaff, and boy is there a lot of chaff out there! Perhaps it's even in this very blog of mine, in which case you will probably not be reading this now. Tsssskkkk!

But, having said all that and having left a lot unsaid, it's all free speech, I suppose, and that must be a good thing. It probably allows a lot of oddballs and nutters out there to let off steam and get things out of their system which, had they not this very effective safety-valve to release their pent-up feelings, growing frustrations and delusions of greatness, they might get up to serious mischief in the real world and do a lot more harm. Or maybe not, maybe it's the other way round and after building up a good head of steam on here they go out and mug old ladies, smash phone booths, and slash car tyres! Personally, the worst I've ever done is to go into the local park and piss up the side of a tree. Now that's protest for you with a capital 'P'! Next time it's the duck pond!