A lot of you have seen the cartoon.\u00a0 A man shipwrecked on a desert island writes a letter requesting help, seals it in a bottle and throws it into the ocean.\u00a0 The punch line varies based on the philosophy or the humor of the cartoonist.\u00a0 Maybe a bottle washes up with a sarcastic reply or maybe he is rescued and one day finds his bottle floating up to his home port or maybe his own bottle returns to him unanswered or maybe some pirates or cannibals find it and come to finish him off.\u00a0 But the idea of sending out a cry for help to the world is a powerful concept.\u00a0 It appeals to our feeling of solidarity with humanity.<\/p>\n
In a way this blog is somewhat like that.\u00a0 Trapped in my little corner of blue state America it\u2019s easy to feel isolated and trapped.\u00a0 Of course, that\u2019s not completely true.\u00a0 I have my friends and family and acquaintances that align with my way of looking at the world (for the most part).\u00a0 And I can read the right-wing websites and even watch some of the non-leftist content on a few outlets that still haven\u2019t cancelled it.<\/p>\n
But in a lot of ways the world I remember is being erased and my world is contracting.\u00a0 Thirty years ago public radio used to be fairly entertaining.\u00a0 Now it would be like listening to fingernails on a chalk board.\u00a0 I used to like watching a ball game occasionally.\u00a0 Now it\u2019s just another chance to insult me.\u00a0 They\u2019ve whittled away the things that made life fun.\u00a0 Even the movies have become unwatchable.\u00a0 And I\u2019m pretty sure I\u2019m not the only one who feels this way.<\/p>\n
So, I had to invent my own game, my own fun.\u00a0 I look at the world and I write out my thoughts and I put it into the bottle and I hit the enter key and it travels around the world and sometimes I get an answer.\u00a0 It could be a yep or a nope or a pat on the back or even occasionally a middle finger but it\u2019s an answer, it\u2019s a voice, it\u2019s an affirmation that the rest of you are out there.\u00a0 It means I exist.\u00a0 You comment, therefore I am.<\/p>\n
So that\u2019s the secret of this blog.\u00a0 You all are the power source that make this blog work for me.\u00a0 I get my motivation, my validation from your presence.\u00a0 Even those who don\u2019t comment but come back every week or every day or even several times a day reinforce my reason to write.\u00a0 Sure, part of it is that I just enjoy the mental exercise of reasoning about the things going on in this crazy time we live in.\u00a0 There\u2019s value in figuring things out on paper (or pixels) and I think better when I write things down and I enjoy posting my reviews and my photos.\u00a0 But I mostly enjoy sending out my thoughts and ideas out into the internet ocean and getting some bottles floating back with some replies.<\/p>\n
So thanks to all you folks out there who show up and read my notes on the shores of this infinite ocean.\u00a0 It\u2019s nice knowing you\u2019re out there and don\u2019t be afraid to say hello if you have the urge to do so.\u00a0 I can always use the company.\u00a0 It\u2019s an awfully big ocean.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A lot of you have seen the cartoon.\u00a0 A man shipwrecked on a desert island writes a letter requesting help, seals it in a bottle<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,818,1263],"tags":[2456,157],"class_list":["post-15429","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-current-events","category-ocf","category-stuff-that-personally-interests-me-miscellaneous","tag-blogging","tag-ocf"],"yoast_head":"\n