I would like a favour please? Blogging

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Ricold
Wise Old Dwarf
Posts: 632
Joined: Sat Jun 05, 2004 3:23 pm
Location: Norwich, UK
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I would like a favour please? Blogging

#1 Post by Ricold »

Hey all, long time.

I'm currently involved in a rather silly exchange on my blog. Originally, I was challenged to write thirty blog posts across the thirty days of November (It's called NaBloPoMo if you've heard of it). I decided to cheat.

Instead of writing thirty posts in the thirty days of November, I started writing them back in August, and saving them for posting across November. This was the first cheat.

Then I started cheating at my cheating. I've extended more than a few posts across several days, where they didn't really need to be, to make up my numbers.

Now I've been challenged on how to cheat at my cheating attempt at my cheating, and the answer I have come up with is to start posting stuff written by other people.

It turns out that I actually know relatively few people who are capable of good quality blogs that aren't already in my normal list of people who read my blog... Hence I am here, as most of them are around this site.

I would be very appreciative if any of you could post up a few paragraphs worth of a blog post on whatever generic topic you like (topic is irrelevant) and allow me to post it to my blog. Probably unattributed, as that is half the fun.

I also need to note that I don't guarantee to use anything, and my blog is a semi-private one, you have to be listed as a friend to read anything on it, so the post will never be public from there, although anyone can read it on the forums here obviously.

Can you help?
Ricold, Not site owner any more, largely absent. PM me if you want me. PM Prince of Spires if you need the head Loremaster.
Facade19
Posts: 402
Joined: Thu Jun 10, 2004 11:57 pm
Location: In the city of pigs

Re: I would like a favour please? Blogging

#2 Post by Facade19 »

So recently a friend of mine informed me that that the latest trend roaming around at his school is that people like to brag about their achievements. While this aspect of collegiate rivalry has been around for as long as learning between two or more people has occurred, or so I like to think, he was rather worried about the general atmosphere this form of self-aggrandizement has generated. For instance, he was rather harsh in his criticism of this one classmate who constantly posted updates on how her study patterns attributed to her performing better than most of her competitors.

Now, I am usually not too concerned with the opinions of other people to whom I had not yet have had the pleasure of being introduced to - or here I will be bold and say outright that I have been blessed of not having made her acquaintance - his comments drew a certain strain of attention. I wonder, what is the possible purpose of posting such communication? Should the quality of one's intellect not be displayed by the placid quality of one's work? Would not the pleasure of then being discovered as the culprit that on a perennial basis obtains the highest grades be far more greater than the promulgation of them through one's own mouth?

"See", my friend informed me, "I do not think I am a believer in expressing one's true opinions through one's own tongue. Rather, I feel that one ought to always marshal enough bravery and skill to placate the potential dangers associated with expressing one's opinion through the use of mouth pieces. Take for instance Plato. Throughout his works he always has these rather stranger characters engage in fascinating conversations with one another, discussing in great detail and depth the nature of the very topic under scrutiny and investigation in each respected dialogue. Yet, one never sees Plato participate. He remains a mystery. As if he is hiding in the shadows of someone else.

"Take for example Thrasymachus from Plato's Republic. He identifies a peculiar idea of justice that Socrates himself discredits. Furthermore, the disagreement between these two interlocutors is so vast that Plato describes Thrasymachus as a wild beast and rather hurt by Socrates. Then why, I wonder, does Thrasymachus end up not leaving and instead ends up making a compact with Plato in the fifth book of the Republic? Could it be that Plato is alluding to something fantastic and thus, something generally overlooked and of great import? Maybe, Plato's true voice is in the actions of his characters and not in the words of his Socrates?"

I was baffled as to what my friend had just stated. Plato and Socrates, and this Thrasymachus? Who still reads these old and boring books? They are useless and offer nothing valuable for us.

Returning to what my friend stated, I would like to think that maybe the things people post are not necessarily what they believe to be true, but only exercises in the art of writing dissimulating perspectives to infuriate and spark the curiosity of others to engage in a dialogue with them. Thus, in a way, they are indeed the superior intellect, because by distracting us sufficiently enough to get us to converse about their conduct we are already entangled in the web which they likely, or substantially had planned and hoped for. So, my friend, after hearing this suggested that maybe he ought to encourage others to refrain from even paying attention to that girl's daily postings and instead, focus on his own affairs. I, of course, found this ridiculous and impossible. My friend wondered why that might be the case.

I responded to him that given our day and age, our forms of communication have altered so much that these daily postings have become one form of routine, daily conversation. Furthermore, I added that these communications are actually necessary and fruitful, in making us more appreciative of each other's existence and hence, enable us to better sympathize with the plight of others. However, my friend, being the frantic maniac wanted to lunge at me with sharpened tongue and challenge me on this as a wild beast. He questioned whether it would be fair to signify her postings as communication worthy of creating bonds. If anything, he added, all these posts only reflect a sort of disillusionment and dehumanization, and a growing degeneration and degradation, an obsession with the cult of the stupid. Since when, he wondered, has it become necessary to state what one is doing at every minute of one's life? Should not certain things be kept hidden and left to the imagination of others? I agreed with him that certain things should be left to the imagination, but that maybe, given our technology driven society old notions of privacy should be abandoned. After all, was it not fun to converse about her status?

He concurred and we both ended up continuing this discussion a while longer. Ultimately, we agreed that a certain beautiful quality exists in these new forms of communication and that one should not look disdainfully at them. Even though we may find the contents of these new manners of conveyances ill suited and morbid, they should nonetheless transpire, because we want everyone's opinion to matter. And thus, the internet, the great invention since the printing press, has flourished new democratic movements to arise, in particular the one that is happening on the world wide web.

In closing, I hope that more people take on the chase to write more posts concerning their status. At the least, we all get a good laugh out of them.
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