I was thinking about Douglas Merrill today... I mean, I really feel like I know him, somehow. I have been reading his blogs for several years now. I feel like I understand what he means, I know somethings about what he has done etc. If I met him somewhere, I bet I could carry off a conversation off of his last blog entry.
However, the truth is, I dont know him - at all. I have never met the guy. Yet I feel this "closeness" to him, like countless others who read popular blogs. And we all get confused, at least in our minds, about how much we know the other person.
The truth is that we know almost nothing about the authors whose blogs we read. Reading a blog, in my mind, is just like reading parts of a book written by an author. Saying that you "know" someone after having read someone's blog is equivalent to saying you "know" someone because you read that person's book. We never seem to make a mistake with respect to the book and its author - we seem to have an innate understanding of the relation a creation (the book) has with its author, so we dont confuse the book's contents with the author's personality or identity. At least, not normally. I mean, has anyone ever thought that they would know Salman Rushdie by reading Midnight's Children?
On the other hand, there are so many people who seem to feel like they know each other well just because they read each other's writing. I even know a couple who met on the blogosphere and got married! I wonder why they do not realize that what gets written is only the part that you want the other person to know. It leaves little room for forming opinions of one's own about somebody - because most of the time it is about putting on an exterior that can impress people.
Of course there are rare people who pour their hearts out on a blog. Perhaps they are the ones who find their sweethearts here. For me though, its just a way of recording some random thoughts I have. Just so I can get back to it and take it up again if I need to. I would never bother to write the real me down for strangers to read. And I guess I wont understand why anyone would want that... But it takes all kinds, I guess.
However, the truth is, I dont know him - at all. I have never met the guy. Yet I feel this "closeness" to him, like countless others who read popular blogs. And we all get confused, at least in our minds, about how much we know the other person.
The truth is that we know almost nothing about the authors whose blogs we read. Reading a blog, in my mind, is just like reading parts of a book written by an author. Saying that you "know" someone after having read someone's blog is equivalent to saying you "know" someone because you read that person's book. We never seem to make a mistake with respect to the book and its author - we seem to have an innate understanding of the relation a creation (the book) has with its author, so we dont confuse the book's contents with the author's personality or identity. At least, not normally. I mean, has anyone ever thought that they would know Salman Rushdie by reading Midnight's Children?
On the other hand, there are so many people who seem to feel like they know each other well just because they read each other's writing. I even know a couple who met on the blogosphere and got married! I wonder why they do not realize that what gets written is only the part that you want the other person to know. It leaves little room for forming opinions of one's own about somebody - because most of the time it is about putting on an exterior that can impress people.
Of course there are rare people who pour their hearts out on a blog. Perhaps they are the ones who find their sweethearts here. For me though, its just a way of recording some random thoughts I have. Just so I can get back to it and take it up again if I need to. I would never bother to write the real me down for strangers to read. And I guess I wont understand why anyone would want that... But it takes all kinds, I guess.
