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About This Author
I am SoCalScribe. This is my InkSpot.
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Blogocentric Formulations
Logocentric (adj). Regarding words and language as a fundamental expression of an external reality (especially applied as a negative term to traditional Western thought by postmodernist critics).
Sometimes I just write whatever I feel like. Other times I respond to prompts, many taken from the following places:
Thanks for stopping by! 
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ACTIVITY: "a very Wodehouse challenge" 
GROUP AFFILIATION: "Welcome To My Reality Forum"
PROMPT: What made you question yourself today?
I'm going to cheat a little an actually talk about something that made me question myself yesterday. My wife and I got back from our family reunion with enough time to make our church's last service of the weekend on Sunday night, and found ourselves being treated to a sermon about love. Not romantic love, but general love and affection for our fellow human beings. The guest speaker delivering the sermon had a lot of really great perspective and interesting points, but what really struck me was when he asked this question:
What's that one thing that's keeping you from loving people the way you know you should?
For him, it was his cell phone and social media. Whenever he had a free moment, he would check his phone, surf Facebook, and do just about anything else rather than live in the moment and build relationships with the people around him, even if it was only for a few moments. It's not that he's an unpleasant guy; he just thought it was an awful lot of work to make conversation and invest in other people when it was easier to invest in an app on his phone that could pass the time.
I realized that I'm the same way, and it's due to my social awkwardness. I don't know what it is, but I don't do well in small group settings. One-on-one, I'm fine. As the center of attention in a very large group setting (like giving a speech to an auditorium, etc.), I'm also fine. But small groups of anywhere from three or four people to fifty make me really uncomfortable, and it's because I don't converse very well. When I don't know someone and I'm making small talk, the conversation tends to be awkward and staccato. When people are separated into smaller groups, I have a difficult time knowing when to transition from one to another, how to ease into a conversation other people are having, how to extract myself from one, etc. I often find myself suddenly alone and my first instinct is to pull out my phone... not because I want to be checking Facebook or my email, but because it's easier to look busy than to stand around awkwardly - all alone - wondering if/when I'll have an opportunity to join another conversation.
What the sermon made me question was why I avoid situations like that, and whether I really want to be that person. Do I want to be the person who rides an elevator in silence and flips through sports scores on my phone until one of us arrives at our floor? Or do I want to be the person who actually greets people - even strangers - in that elevator and asks them how their day is going?
The sermon really made me question myself because I want to be a more sociable person. I like people. I enjoy connecting with others and yet I often find myself playing the part of the quiet, unsociable, introverted plane seat neighbor who never looks up from the book he's reading rather than taking a few moments to greet someone and find out about who they are. Starting today, I promised myself that I would go two weeks without sticking my nose in my phone every time I felt awkward; that I would take the time to greet people whenever the opportunity presents itself.
One of the things I've discovered is that people are friendly (and a little surprised) when someone random that they don't know asks them earnestly how they're doing.
The other thing I've discovered is just how many people stick their nose in their phones to avoid conversation.  |
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ACTIVITY: "a very Wodehouse challenge"
GROUP AFFILIATION: "Welcome To My Reality Forum"
PROMPT: Do you ever inscribe books when you gift them? Do you have books with inscriptions in? Do they make a gift more meaningful? Do they make a book more treasured? Or are they simply a form of graffiti, defacing the book and reducing the value?
I have an incredibly difficult time "defacing" any book. Inscriptions, dog-earing pages, highlighting, writing in the margins... it all makes me shudder. I just hate the idea of a beautiful thing like a book being permanently and intentionally marred. I suppose I should learn to get over this fear since at some point I hope to be a published author who will tour the world signing the damned things with a Sharpie  ... but for the time being, I have a really hard time with it.
Part of my distaste for the practice, I think, is because I used to only be able to afford used books and especially used textbooks in college. Inevitably, someone would have written in my copy, or highlighted a particular passage in a way that made it incredibly difficult to read or process on my own. It'd be a highlighted passage that I didn't think was that important but couldn't avoid looking at because it was framed in bright atomic yellow ink... or someone would make a notation that's completely wrong and I'd have to have it stuck in my head while I was studying... it was very frustrating to have to deal with those kinds of books at a time in my life when it just wasn't feasible to purchase a brand new copy that was pristine and unsullied.
The odd thing, though, is that I actually think inscriptions are a beautiful thing, especially when it comes to a gift. When I find one at a used bookstore or elsewhere, it's always fun to imagine the relationship of the gifter and giftee, and why that particular book was important (assuming it's not listed in the inscription).
I only have a few books with inscriptions in them; and most of them are author-signed copies, or used books that I've purchased with inscriptions already in them. I don't have a lot that were inscribed to me... I don't feel like inscriptions reduce the value of the book, and honestly, if I'm gifting it to someone and they want to turn around and sell it, I don't really care how much they get for it.  But I do think they can make a book more treasured and meaningful, assuming the words put into the inscription are significant to the recipient. |
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ACTIVITY: "a very Wodehouse challenge"
GROUP AFFILIATION: "Welcome To My Reality Forum"
PROMPT: What's the hardest thing about blogging, for you personally?
Hands down, the most difficult thing about blogging - at least for me - is remaining consistently interesting. I've never been one of those people who has incessantly updated his Facebook status, or tweeted every random thought that comes into my head, or snapped pics of every meal preparation I sit down to enjoy for the benefit of my Instagram follows. Quite honestly, I don't think I'm that interesting or have that many interesting things to say that I need to constantly make readers aware of my experiences, thoughts, and opinions. It can be incredibly difficult for me to blog with any degree of consistency without either getting bored or feeling like I'm just throwing random stuff out in the ether. I also tend to enjoy actual conversation, so the appeal of posting something and then forgetting it and moving onto the next thing without actually engaging anyone has very limited appeal.
I've been participating in some blogging groups and activities this year, which has been great because it's definitely given me something to write about without feeling like I'm dredging the bottom of the riverbed for really dull stuff that isn't relevant. And it's been great for getting other people engaged; when we're all participating and responding to the same prompts, it can be a great way to interact. I do tend to burn out quickly, though. Blogging is a great warm-up for me... it gets the creative juices flowing and helps me get into a writing mindset... but if I'm not careful, it can easily take up a lot of my writing time and then I find that I have no juice left for fiction or whatever else I've been wanting to write!
I definitely struggle with coming up with interesting thoughts on a consistent basis. I'll go through phases where I'll happily blog or tweet or post a Facebook status every day... and then I'll just need to take a break for a week or two and disappear for a while. I suppose everyone needs a break every once in a while, as long as those breaks are relatively few and far between (which is another thing I struggle with when it comes to blogging).
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