09 January 2010

The present tense of Present Tense.

Dearest Readers,

Alas, it has been many a week since this blog has been graced with presence of its writer (excluding new years, of course). I would love to blame being busy with university as the excuse - but I fear this would be inaccurate, for it has never stopped me before. No dear Readers, it is something a little more serious that has been blocking my writing.

And it is, coincidently, a direct result of university. But not because of workload, but rather the way it has been changing how I think.

I won't lie - and many (if not all ;) )of you will already know this - I have something of an ego. I am not afraid to admit that I used to think that some of my entries were slightly unique, exploring things that were not really looked at much. I made that wonderful inexperienced teenage thing of thinking that I knew something about everything.

University has shown me that I know nothing about everything. It has shown me that there are people who spend their entire lives researching things that I have only ever started to allude to in previous entries. There are bodies of work relating to nearly everything I have ever talked about. An entire academic world out there with much more life and academic experience behind it than I could ever have. The incredible naivety of my self was thrown unceremoniously into my direct line of sight. And I am glad it was.

But it has left me in a rather problematic state. I know nothing about everything, thus how can I possibly write with any form of authority, sway, or power? I cannot write about that which I do not know. My words cannot have any power to affect the readers of this humble cyberspace. What is the point of writing about something, if I can never know everything about it. Who am I to engage people on topics that many people are much better qualified to discuss?

And I came to a realisation. And it is this realisation and resolution that mean I am not afraid to talk frankly about way I used to think. This realisation involved re-examining the the entire purpose of this insignificant little corner of cyberspace. The tagline to my blog reads "..Hell-bent on discovering the world." Through this blog I sought to learn about the world, myself, and the people around me through writing about that which I saw, and that which I wanted to see.

I guess I always knew that, of course, the world could never fully be discovered. But it is only now that I realise the implication of the tagline is that, in a subconscious manner, I may have thought that there was an endpoint to this blog, that it is indeed possible to discover the world. Yet the world can never fully be uncovered, and so this blog does not have an endpoint and never will. Which left me realising that this blog is, and always was, a reflection of a very personal world. A world which is unique to myself. My world.

The world is a bigger place than I had ever previously imagined, and not one which can be explored objectively, separate from my own experience. My own experience is intricately linked to my perceptions of the world.

I may not know anything about everything. But I know something about somethings.

These writings - the past writings, the future writings, and the writings of the Present Tense - are about me and the way I see my world.

And so I seek to show you all, dear Readers, my world. And through that, perhaps, I seek to offer you an insight into your world.

With love and the fresh side of a new leaf,
Christopher.


If one is estranged from oneself, then one is estranged from others too. If one is out of touch with oneself, then one cannot touch others.
-Anne Morrow Lindbergh

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Winner!

 
Any material on this page (excluding third party templates and images) is, unless explicitly stated otherwise, © 2009 Christopher K. All rights reserved. "Present Tense" header is © 2009 Adam P. Used with permission.