Welcome to Brock’s 300th weblog post.
Why do I subject myself, and readers, to this massive outpouring of words, that a weblog represents? There are two reasons. The first is my addiction to writing, combined with an inability to keep a diary. When I try to write a diary, which used to happen about once a decade, it is more a reflection on the day’s events, than a chronicle of them. My determination as a diarist lasts about a week. There are a thousand excuses for any failure to write, not finding the diary being paramount.
The second reason involves brain stimulation. Novelty releases dopamine in the brain. which, in turn, stimulates the amygdala, the site of emotion, and creates a pleasurable feeling that is associated with the new activity. Fun encourages more fun, which is what writing a weblog post should be about.
A weblog suits my personality: my mind prefers to focus on topics, rather than on events, or on people; a keyboard is faster than a pen. Yet, despite its slowness, I still use pen and paper to write other texts, for handwriting is an skill that should be retained and sometimes promoted. My one vanity is a pride in my handwriting, which – when I take the time – is small and legible and produced using liquid blue ink. I have tried black, red and even green, but prefer blue.
Changes are easier to make with word processors, than they are with pen on paper. While it may not be any easier to start writing a blog than to begin an entry in a diary, but it is easier to continue again at a later date, and to make corrections. Innumerable drafts can be kept, that can be published in any order, or even discarded. Not even my hairdresser knows how many drafts I have stored away, awaiting further inspiration. As I write this sentence, there are 330 posts in total, 293 published, 6 scheduled, 31 in draft form, and one in the bin. That is the number on my private website, not on the Keywords website or inside my computers or on external drives.
As I write these lines my mind returns to the early 1980s, and to the technology available at the time. A computer terminal can show what was right, and what was wrong with an era that introduced the masses to computing.
The Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) VT 100 terminal was a companion for three years. Designed for computer programming, rather than word processing, with 80 columns and 24 lines of white text against a black background. The monitor/ screen was fixed in position, too low and unsuitably angled. The keyboard was far too high, and certainly not ergonomic. The user was expected to adapt to the machine.
The Norsk Data (ND) system, with its ND-Notis word processor was a vast improvement. The Tandberg TDV-2200 terminal was the most ergonomic terminal in the world at the time, its brown and beige monitor/ screen featured green text on a black background, and was fully adjustable in every direction. Its beige, brown and orange keyboard, was a delight to use. I used such a system, in two different environments, for four years. Even the colour scheme was explained in ergonomic terms, with claims that the colours chosen were more restive than any other colour combinations available. The machine was expected to adapt to the user.
It is easy for old men to focus on the past, but that is not what I want to do here. I want to encourage people of multiple ages and genders and ethnicities and interests to reflect on their lives, and on society, and then to express themselves. How will people in a future age know what it was like to live at this time, if you don’t tell them? How will people in distant lands, know what you experienced, are experiencing? Help them to understand, and you might also begin to understand yourself, and your place in the world.
A weblog does not have to be written words. It can be words or music as sound waves, or assorted movements as video. At the moment, it is more problematic to diffuse smells and tastes, but a time may come when this is possible. Poetry, drama, comedy, performance are all valid forms of expression. It could be images: photographs as works of art or mirrors of contemporary life; drawings, paintings, collage; sculpture that is knitted, cast in bronze or chiselled away from stone; culinary masterpieces. Craftsmanship is of particular importance to me, and I admire all forms of it: woodworking, metalworking, moulding in plastic, papier-mâché, sewing.
As is my habit, I encourage people to write weblogs, rather than to use social media. Restrict it to your best friends and closest family, and perhaps a couple of people you don’t know that well, to keep it honest. Write about the topics that interest you. Perhaps you know something about tractors, or dogs or playing congas.
With 7.7 billion people, the world is being consumed, so there is less nature for other species to inhabit, and ourselves to enjoy. We – in the west – will have to learn to consume less, so that others may fulfil their lives. Hopefully, this will also mean that we will work less, and spend our free time in pursuits that benefit others as well as ourselves. Even billionaires would benefit, if there was increased equality. Perhaps you could find, then document, ways of doing things better, that use less energy or water or materials. Perhaps you could invent, then document, new ways of having fun: A new game, dance, sport or toy.
Have fun everyone, and thanks for reading!