Sunday, August 14, 2022

Progress in Metaphysics Delayed by Well-Intentioned Blogger

That's almost thirty consecutive days with a new post. I have the time to write them, but who has the time to read them without ontological indigestion? This seems to be a violation of Dávila's first principle of writing:

Write concisely, so as to finish before making the reader sick.

I do actually try to honor that principle, and always want to say the maximum with the minimum -- the minimum required to communicate the idea. 

If a finger is pointing at the moon, it's the moon that counts, not the length of the finger. Nor am I the kind of guy who points at the fair and silvery orb adorning the firmament of God's pinprick dome, swaddling us in our night-sea journey as we go a-roving in dreams, or some other gay words. I'll occasionally throw in a fruity adjective to honor the mystery, but generally I try to be pretty blunt.

Another principle:

He who longs to write for more than a hundred readers capitulates.

I don't check the site meter, so I'm not sure if we've shed enough readers to be below triple digits yet.

To write honestly for others, one must write fundamentally for oneself.

If you ever catch me in a lie, know that I have first lied to myself, and there's no talking me out of it.

The idea that does not win over in twenty lines does not win over in two thousand pages.

Guilty with an explanation: finitude can never exhaust infinitude.

There are never too many writers, only too many people who write.

And there are always too many bloggers, even though there aren't many of us OG types who still embrace this antiquated platform.

Wordiness is not an excess of words, but a dearth of ideas

Worse yet, if left untreated it can end in tenure, which is why

The deluded are prolix.

When I wake up in the morning, I check out the news of the day. And then I escape from it:

Writing is the only way to distance oneself from the century in which it was one’s lot to be born.

If you find yourself agreeing, it is because

Words do not communicate, they remind.

Conversely, if you find yourself disagreeing, it is because 

Reading makes the fool more foolish.

I wonder: if we look back to October of 2005, when we started blogging, would we see any "progress?" Or is it rather that

Every writer comments indefinitely on his brief original text.

The same ideas, just painted different colors? I suspect my writing has improved as a result of all this practice. Well, so what:

Simple talent is to literature what good intentions are to conduct.

I can take a hint, but I'll be back in a few days. 

7 comments:

julie said...

Have a nice blog break, Bob.

julie said...

...the fair and silvery orb adorning the firmament of God's pinprick dome, swaddling us in our night-sea journey as we go a-roving in dreams,

I read that in the voice of Martin from the Simpsons. Also works for Sideshow Bob.

Gagdad Bob said...

It was Ace of Spades who once described poetry as gay sentences. Not that there's anything wrong with it.

julie said...

Ha - yes, that sounds like something Ace would say.

Anonymous said...

Reading makes the fool more foolish.

Indeed. This reader would think that climate change would fall squarely into the Book of Revelations, the culmination of all the Genesis 3’s gone rogue. But no, fossil fuel companies have been proven innocent before ever being found guilty. The End of Days will be inspired by a far more sinister manifestation of greed gone amok, the trans, because too many refused to expect it where they least expected it.

And so I quit reading and viewed instead. I started with the “This is the End” movie. In that one, the most satanic people were the feminist-petite Emma Watson, everybody’s favorite possessed fat kid Jonah Hill, and the guy we’d all like to have a sloppy beer with, Danny McBride.

It was the strong white men who got raptured. Plus one black one. I gnash my teeth thinking that it should've been Ru Paul who terrified me.

Van Harvey said...

"The idea that does not win over in twenty lines does not win over in two thousand pages."

"Win them over? No, but with two thousand lines you can separate them from reality and crush them into submission! Bwa-ha-Hahhhhh...ha-HAH!" - signed yours *truly*, Immanuel Kant.

Van Harvey said...

[reads previous comment] snort. Amateur. Sincerely, G.W.F. Hegel.

Theme Song

Theme Song