Ecclesiastical blogging- It is all meaningless

What a good thing Adam had. When he said a good thing he knew nobody had said it before - Mark Twain.

I know this will seem discouraging to those not already jaded by the ecclesiastical meaningless of the blogosphere, but really, it’s all been said before. Worse, it’s all been thought before. And now we have documentation at our fingertips. In the past I could go to musty book stores to get a sense of the futileness of human thought and advancement. Notice how carelessly each book is discarded on the shelf- forgotten, or never discovered. How discouraging to see one hundred books lined by each other, like cloned rats, written on the same subject matter, saying the same thing.

But at least that required some physical effort, to walk the solemn aisles, to hold someone’s labour in your hands, gives the artifact a sense of dignity. Those ideas and thoughts, strived for and sweated over, yet never reaching greatness, were given a tomb to rest. Now mediocre writing, by millions of fellas like us, roams the internet like spirits haunting our very sense of identity. Really, what makes us unique?

I admit the above question reeks of narcissism. Why do I need to be unique? In fact, some would say good writing should express that which connects us in the human experience. I agree. I just want to say that differently from everyone else. Thus, the duality of my identity struggle presents itself:

I long to take part in the shared and universal human experience, but to be remembered for my uniqueness.

This thought came to me when I decided to write my first piece for this here site, only to find, maybe through some butterfly effect, that an excellent article had already been posted on aldaily.com reflecting on the exact topic. And damn it, it said everything I wanted to say and more. It was a little piece on whether reading and struggling through a book is really worth the pain of reading and struggling through a book. I wanted to write on this because I myself was reading and struggling through a book, ironically titled the double.

I say ironic, because the book deals with identity challenged by one mans discovery of another man his exact duplicate. Of course, I draw parallels with my current struggle to find a sense of meaningfulness when faced with mirrored ideas posted on the internet everyday. How discouraging to see yourself reflected in the harsh fluorescent light of the zero and one’s of a computer screen, laid bare in it’s pornographic repetition. I figure it might feel similar to looking down upon earth from the moon- how small and insignificant we must seem.

So then I got really paranoid. And started thinking that someone maybe saying or thinking exactly what I am thinking this very moment. The same words I am speaking may be coming out of someone else’s mouth at the exact same time… Like These Words Now. Perhaps it would make me feel better to write something never written before; a combination of words never put together by any generation… swan harp breaks upon the slippery big mac shoe. It doesn’t make sense though, so really… it’s meaningless. How futile. So I continued on the day, pacing forward one foot before the other, like the millions of those before me and those after me. Until something positive actually happened.

I struggled through the book. I finished it, and it’s conclusion was worth the payoff. The women and relationships in the two doubles lives are remarkably in the end what define them, and separates them from each other. Sure it’s not a huge revelation, but it was somehow comforting. So perhaps I can take heed in the fact we have each other, and we are sharing lives in unique ways. Writing should reflect this, not a vain search to be recognized.

How brightly my ear’s burned when I read C.S Lewis’s take on writing- “ youthful vanity and dullness, determined to write, will almost certainly write in the dominant form of their epoch”. I hope to heed his warning.