stoutfellow (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
stoutfellow) wrote2004-07-08 02:03 pm
stoutfellow) wrote2004-07-08 02:03 pm
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Livejournal and Life, redux
About a month ago, I commented on the effect livejournal was having on the way I interact with the world - the way I find myself interpreting experiences as fodder for lj entries. I wasn't sure whether this was good, bad, or indifferent. I've just noticed one good effect that it's having.
I'm currently reading John Barnes' A Million Open Doors. I have a vague impression of having read a bit of it, or it may have been a short story in the same universe, a number of years ago. (It was published in 1992, which sounds about right.) I don't recall being impressed by it, though. This time, reading it in the awareness that I might write a review, I'm finding beauties in it I might otherwise have missed. There's quite a bit of humor, for one thing, resting in the - no, I don't want to start on that. The point is that I'm getting more out of it, and my lj experience is the reason. (I wondered, in my previous post, what this could be called. It's not the examined life, in the classical sense of that phrase; perhaps it could be called the attentive life?)
On another front: I've been listening to quite a bit of Gordon Lightfoot lately, and thinking about what I like about his work. A major part of his repertoire is pretty standard pop - I'm thinking of "Sundown" and "Rainy Day People", for example - which, while pleasant enough to listen to, really doesn't have a lot of substance. I think I prefer it when he turns more towards folk music. In particular, those of his songs which are explicitly Canadian really appeal to me: "Canadian Railroad Trilogy", "Christian Island", and "Crossroads", for instance. There's a third subset as well - political songs, most of them from early in his career. "Black Day in July" isn't very interesting musically, and the events described, while disturbing enough, don't really resonate with me. I wasn't politically conscious at the time, and there's not much for the song to hook onto for me. He does better with songs that are less specified in time and place; I've always liked "Don Quixote" - in fact, I think that was the song that brought him to my attention - and "Pride of Man" just gives me the shivers. That song was written about forty years ago, but it seems disturbingly apropos after the events of the last few years. (It bears a family resemblance to Kipling's "Recessional"; it even ends - probably deliberately - with the same words: Thy mercy on Thy people, Lord!)
And I think, here again, that lj has helped enhance my appreciation.
This is a good thing, I'm thinking.
I'm currently reading John Barnes' A Million Open Doors. I have a vague impression of having read a bit of it, or it may have been a short story in the same universe, a number of years ago. (It was published in 1992, which sounds about right.) I don't recall being impressed by it, though. This time, reading it in the awareness that I might write a review, I'm finding beauties in it I might otherwise have missed. There's quite a bit of humor, for one thing, resting in the - no, I don't want to start on that. The point is that I'm getting more out of it, and my lj experience is the reason. (I wondered, in my previous post, what this could be called. It's not the examined life, in the classical sense of that phrase; perhaps it could be called the attentive life?)
On another front: I've been listening to quite a bit of Gordon Lightfoot lately, and thinking about what I like about his work. A major part of his repertoire is pretty standard pop - I'm thinking of "Sundown" and "Rainy Day People", for example - which, while pleasant enough to listen to, really doesn't have a lot of substance. I think I prefer it when he turns more towards folk music. In particular, those of his songs which are explicitly Canadian really appeal to me: "Canadian Railroad Trilogy", "Christian Island", and "Crossroads", for instance. There's a third subset as well - political songs, most of them from early in his career. "Black Day in July" isn't very interesting musically, and the events described, while disturbing enough, don't really resonate with me. I wasn't politically conscious at the time, and there's not much for the song to hook onto for me. He does better with songs that are less specified in time and place; I've always liked "Don Quixote" - in fact, I think that was the song that brought him to my attention - and "Pride of Man" just gives me the shivers. That song was written about forty years ago, but it seems disturbingly apropos after the events of the last few years. (It bears a family resemblance to Kipling's "Recessional"; it even ends - probably deliberately - with the same words: Thy mercy on Thy people, Lord!)
And I think, here again, that lj has helped enhance my appreciation.
This is a good thing, I'm thinking.
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Maybe that's it, you're thinking about things a bit more, rather than just enjoying them. And the thinking about them in more depth seems to actually enhance your experience. Which is unlike writing a book report for school and a good thing!
"The Thinking Life" ??
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Me, too: it *is* a good thing!
intimacy...
Which brings us back to... Live Journal is a safe place to experience the richness of intimate friends. I too think it is a good thing.
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So perhaps what your lj-ing is becoming to you is not only examining, or thinking, or experiencing, or sharing, but the wondrous combination of all those things plus the act of creation when you do write it. And then, finally, the whole point, the other half that completes the process:
Someone reads it.
I agree with you, though I've posted little myself yet on lj; when something is happening that I want to write about, the very decision to do so immediately enhances the experience. It's the extra observations, the absorbing of them, the conscious act of tucking all the individual ingredients into the back brain, knowing that when the "flavors" have stewed and been stirred and blended well enough, it'll be served. Ahhhh....
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Barnes essay