Quoting Myself
Most people who blog have probably had this experience: you’re talking to a friend or family member about something that happened and you realize you’ve either already blogged about it or that it would make good fodder for a future entry.
It’s especially weird when it’s the former and you feel compelled to say something like, “As I wrote on my blog, blah, blah, blah…”as if your interlocutor has hung on your every written word and is rolling his or her eyes because what you’re saying is old news and has already been said so much more eloquently on the internet.
Even as I write this, I imagine talking to Jen about it, in which case I’ll be talking about writing about something that I had written about talking about.
The possibilities for recursion are endless.
It’s equally weird to view experiences in my life as potential subjects for blogging about. For instance, Jen and I are planning on going out tonight to see a show; a small part of its appeal is that I may be able to count on having subject matter for tomorrow’s piece.
I assume, of course, that this experience is not unique to contemporary bloggers; I’ll wager that autobiographers and journalists from time immemorial have felt the same way. Being one’s own Boswell in real-time, however, might make the sensation more acute, or at least more immediate. In the past, I would likely have been saving up my experiences for future opportunities to write about them; here, I’m turning them over and out almost as soon as they happen.
My family lived in Holland for six months when I was eleven; I kept a travel journal nearly every day of the trip. When I look back at it, I marvel at how the kid I was could compress so many new experiences into just a single page a day.
Now, I’m amused that I can expand so few into another 327 words.
It’s especially weird when it’s the former and you feel compelled to say something like, “As I wrote on my blog, blah, blah, blah…”as if your interlocutor has hung on your every written word and is rolling his or her eyes because what you’re saying is old news and has already been said so much more eloquently on the internet.
Even as I write this, I imagine talking to Jen about it, in which case I’ll be talking about writing about something that I had written about talking about.
The possibilities for recursion are endless.
It’s equally weird to view experiences in my life as potential subjects for blogging about. For instance, Jen and I are planning on going out tonight to see a show; a small part of its appeal is that I may be able to count on having subject matter for tomorrow’s piece.
I assume, of course, that this experience is not unique to contemporary bloggers; I’ll wager that autobiographers and journalists from time immemorial have felt the same way. Being one’s own Boswell in real-time, however, might make the sensation more acute, or at least more immediate. In the past, I would likely have been saving up my experiences for future opportunities to write about them; here, I’m turning them over and out almost as soon as they happen.
My family lived in Holland for six months when I was eleven; I kept a travel journal nearly every day of the trip. When I look back at it, I marvel at how the kid I was could compress so many new experiences into just a single page a day.
Now, I’m amused that I can expand so few into another 327 words.
posted by Professor Dave at 10:25 AM
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