on blogging

So. As I've mentioned several times, I'm reading this fascinating book, Mediated.

I've been reading it forfreakinever even though it's short because I read hella slowly and I haven't got the time any more to read for hours on end. Still, I've got the gist of it and I'm nearly through.

The gist is this (but please read the whole thing, it's a swell book) : we no longer live our lives directly, but via representations (media -- plural of "medium": middleman) of our lives -- via the middlemen we use to express ourselves and learn about ourselves.

It's the opposite of what Tyler says: you really are your job, your khakis, and the car you drive.

you picked all those things out because of what you think they "say about you".

The author gives example after example, and they all hit home.

We take pictures of nature because now the pictures are more real than the nature itself. There is no more nature, only Nature Preserves.

I was thinking about this as I drove home from my hike today, my camera digitally laden with digital photographs of Preserved Nature.

Blogging, of course, is the ultimate in Mediation. I go out and do shit so I can blog about it. I have two tee-shirts -- both gifts -- that say "I'm blogging this" and you can bet that when I'm wearing them I'm not joking. I take pictures and think up the captions that will accompany them on the blog. I take pictures because I plan to post them on my website that nobody will ever read.

The thing is -- just as the Mediated author points out (in what he calls the Justin's Helmet Principle) -- despite the fact that it's fucking lame, this is really all a good thing.

The (sad?) inescapable fact is: before I had this blog, I was a shut-in. A loner. A people-avoider. I never did anything.

Now I'm having the time of my life, and whether it's because I'm blogging it or the other way around is irrelevant. The two coincided in time. I mediate my life by blogging about it, and that act has improved my life immeasureably -- or not, it can probably be measured: it's certainly all been recorded!

Blogging looks to you like self-indulgent narcissistic self-flattery (this description brought to you by the department of redundancy department). But (for me) it's not. It's motivation. It's mediation.

This unread blog is the medium by which I choose the adventures that will be extraordinary enough to warrant being recorded for posterity.

This unread blog gets me off my arse and into the world. And it's all because the words I spew here are more real than Reality (tm). I'm creating reality here. I blog about a hike and it goes from a walk in the forest to a Grand Adventure. More real than reality.

Which version of events do you think remains in my head, motivating me to go out again next week? Motivating me to generate enough excitement in description of hiking to get my gf to join me?

But blogging isn't the only way I'm mediated. Example: I'm obsessed with boots. You should know that by now. The real reason I keep hiking: I like wearing my boots. They're waterproof (really???) and I like to jump in puddles with them. I wear them because they make me feel like a tough guy. They're combat boots, made in the USA by a DOD contractor.

Is that lame?

Did you go on a really fun hike today?

I did. Because I've got some kind of weird boot-fetish? Who cares?

I express myself -- to myself as much as to others -- via my footwear. It's weird. It's pathetic. It's cute. It's beside the point.

It's mediation.

And it's a good thing.