Having a Sensibility

Well, my beloved Andrew Sullivan has managed to spare himself a minute or two to write an insightful essay on the importance of blogging. How he finished the damn thing without scathing Sarah Palin is simply beyond me. After all, she still keeps him up at night - and no, not in the way that she "keeps up" those festering fools on the lunatic fringe, like Rich "little starbursts" Lowry.

Palin's lack-of-presence aside, "Why I Blog," published in November's Atlantic, is a fascinating foray into the strange, spiritually-consuming vortex that is the blogosphere. So, he pretty much states the obvious: blogs are, for better or worse, the medium for the future. Yet Andrew's intellectual gravitas and mastery of the issue - he began blogging in the Spring of 2000 and is one of the most-read bloggers in the world - makes the piece a must-read.

I, like Andrew, think highly of blogging. That should be of no surprise. Consider this: Where would Barack Obama be without the Internet? Where would he be without the diatribes of grass-roots activists and intellectuals? It's quite difficult to imagine a successful Obama campaign - especially in the daunting primary battle - without the likes of Andrew, Daily Kos, Talking Points Memo and, of course, the Huffington Post behind him. Blogs are, without doubt, the most democratic and accessible form of writing, explains Sullivan:

To blog is therefore to let go of your writing in a way, to hold it at arm’s length, open it to scrutiny, allow it to float in the ether for a while, and to let others, as Montaigne did, pivot you toward relative truth. A blogger will notice this almost immediately upon starting. Some e-mailers, unsurprisingly, know more about a subject than the blogger does. They will send links, stories, and facts, challenging the blogger’s view of the world, sometimes outright refuting it, but more frequently adding context and nuance and complexity to an idea. The role of a blogger is not to defend against this but to embrace it. He is similar in this way to the host of a dinner party. He can provoke discussion or take a position, even passionately, but he also must create an atmosphere in which others want to participate.

Indeed. But the relationship between writer and reader, blogger and, uh, blogee, has always tickled my fancy. So perhaps out of interest, emotional longing or sheer envy, I found this commentary on the communal aspect of blogging most appealing:

That atmosphere will inevitably be formed by the blogger’s personality. The blogosphere may, in fact, be the least veiled of any forum in which a writer dares to express himself. Even the most careful and self-aware blogger will reveal more about himself than he wants to in a few unguarded sentences and publish them before he has the sense to hit Delete. The wise panic that can paralyze a writer—the fear that he will be exposed, undone, humiliated—is not available to a blogger. You can’t have blogger’s block. You have to express yourself now, while your emotions roil, while your temper flares, while your humor lasts. You can try to hide yourself from real scrutiny, and the exposure it demands, but it’s hard. And that’s what makes blogging as a form stand out: it is rich in personality.

I've come to realize that this space is more of an editorial page than a blog, really, and a poor one at that. I mean, with its impersonal nature and the infrequency of postings, it would be rather dubious to call this experiment blogging-proper, no?

That's not to say that it lacks personality or emotion. On the contrary, my self-indulgent prose and overzealous grandstanding surely enriches the experience and makes it, if I can be so bold, truly unique.

Then again, having absolutely no credibility or professional responsibility can be exceptionally liberating.