why blog?

do you have a blog? the question that i would assume almost every writer has run across when proclaimed they are a writer.

the answer from most of us: kinda.

see, sure, one has a blog but what does that mean in an age where everyone, in a sense, has a blog too. maybe their blog is just a stream of tweets or facebook rants, but writing on the internet is still writing on the internet, and in doing so, blogging becomes just another helpless scream in the void that is the internet, which has turned into a realm of battlements and battleaxes as everyone wants to have their voice heard.

i got this blog a couple years back with the intention of contributing to it frequently enough where i would have a sorta individualized platform in which my thoughts could be used as an indictator to corporations/businesses to showcase my skill as a technically proficient writer, even if it's within the blogging mode. but i was discouraged as i thought of the true insignificance that writing on the internet would have. like, out of all the places on the internet, out of all the blogs/publications/magazines/websites/etc., why do i have to the gall to imagine anything i have to say is worthy of having its own platform.

what is my angle.

well, it's me! dylan gray! hi!

other than that, i don't want to pretend that i have any grandoise ideas that will change the discourse of the world: i don't even believe that i have anything to say. that was truly my biggest issue when starting this blog: what do you have to say. and the truth is: nothing really. for the most part, i liked to be left alone, do my drugs, read/write, watch movies, absorb sunlight, and not worry about what other people think. not to say i don't have my opinions. we all do. and i respect that. i respect it enough to where i don't want to seem like i'm being smarmy by being a contrarian on this-or-that topic (especially nowadays where saying ones opinion is like an us-vs-them recruitment). but even still, i love to write, and i love reading writings of other people's opinions and such. and with the recent trend, even, of autofiction, the lines between truth/reality/fiction are becoming blurred. we are reaching a point of singularity in writing where all is nothing and all is everything at the same time.

so why blog?

i'm just a recent graduate of college. i have not seen the world. i have been in the state of indiana for the past 22 years. i'm a hoosier. what do i have to say. what do i have to add. who cares about my opinion, right? in the grand scheme, really nobody cares what anyone has to say. but as humans, i believe we have the duty to let our ideas/experiences be shared in order to gather a collective sense of what it means to be human. and i believe writing strikes at that core of what it means to be human, which is our consciousness. unfortunately, we as humans have been cursed/blessed as being the dominant predator on this weird little blue planet. in a way, we have been anointed (by gods or aliens or bacteria or psilocybin or whatever you believe in) as being the ones to take care of things around here. because if not, this planet will swallow us whole (if we don't beat it to it ourselves) and will be fine longer after our species has been wiped out, and will probably be a better place for it.

blogging (and writing in general) is very punk. and i mean this sincerely. punk as an ethos was to rebel against the establishment order in order to see how exactly those frameworks of suppression/ideology/power hold us back. the recent trend in rap music is going through its own punk-rock movement itself, from top to bottom. in a system designed to inhibit the economic mobility of minorities, the internet has provided a democratic platform to which artists are freely allowed to express themselves and is able to have the sort of access that more 'acceptable' artists of the past were only privileged to have. and in turn, rap music has become the dominant sound in the mainstream.

the internet in the post-9/11 society became that sort of punk rock movement for writers. blogging then was to express freely about anything and everything that was wrong (and there were quite a lot of grievances), and the internet as a medium allowed writers/bloggers to say whatever they wanted without repercussions, kind of like a political cartoon, once its out there, there's no taking it back. the days before the advent of social media were the wild west of the internet. it was a strange, bewildering, and even dangerous place. all those who got to experience the joys of AOL messanger and - as Broad City coined it -  'early randomcore' were the fortunate souls who were able to see what the internet was truly capable of, before being completely commodified out the wazoo by corporations.

do people still go on websites on the internet anymore.

albinoblacksheep?

stupidvideos?

ebaumsworld?

newgrounds?

at least for me, all those websites were quintessential in my young life. i think you'd be hard-pressed to find a domain with just a random video on it that garnered such sensationalism as those early sites. people i think now only explore a handful of websites: youtube, twitter, reddit, facebook; and most of those are all filtered through google (even writing on blogger now, it's still owned by google). it's hard nowadays to have those sorts of impacts on the internet like those previous platforms because it's all been gobbled up by corporations.

but still, even though our words that we type out are being used in some algorithm to sell us amazon products, they can't commodify our ideas. our ideas are what make us unique individuals, and our ideas are what help us understand the world better. i think people like david icke, who believes that the world is being controlled by a race of intergalactic lizard people, with his ideas, is reaching something closer to the truth than people want to give him credit for. by thinking outside of our normal realm of ideology, we can perhaps parse together how an individual like david icke might have reached the conclusion he has and, with some critical thinking get to the 'truth' of what he might mean by this 'they live'-esque world he thinks he live in. indeed, ideas have great power, and with that true evil can rise out of prejudice/ignorant preconceptions, but in order to refute those claims, we are in need of open dialogue. by blogging, one is having their voice screaming into an abyss where possibly/probably no one would hear. but there is only that case where someone might read what you have to say, and perhaps open their mind to a new perspective they hadn't considered previously. more than likely that won't be the case, but there's always hope.

one area i think that our education system has truly failed our nation is 'writing'. as a kid in high school, you are told to write some essay and are never told why to do so; you are told, hey! write this because we told you too; or, hey! read this and take a quiz on it so you can get an A and go to college where they can tell you to read/do/write this-or-that because you'll pass this class and get a degree and go on to get a job where that will tell you to do this-or-that or the other. all this said, the acted of writing is perceived to be 'work' in the modern age. writing is just another problem you can to overcome to get where you want to get. but in truth, writing does much more than that.

writing is engaging in your thoughts are understanding how to communicate yourself most effectively.

in essence: writing = thinking

to able to write well means to be able to think well too. we need writing so we understand how we as an individual think/operate. this doesn't just do good for the general public as a forum of transmitting thoughts into script, but it is good for the individual too. the process of thinking is something that we can't stop from doing. unfortunately, in our late capitalist society, we are so bombarded by advertisements/notifications/automobiles/stereo/LED/radio frequencies/other general stimuli that are thoughts become distorted/distracted. and that's exactly what the corporations want: to brainwash our thoughts/opinions to think about buy! buy! buy! that might sound like new age paranoia, but any research into the addictive qualities of our cell phones show that these companies try to make us all media addicts, because that's more telepathy they can seduce us with. i digress: the act of writing is the act of engaging with our minds in ways that THEY don't want you to. they don't want us to have free-thought; they want complete control of free-will. blogging, and writing more generally, can be the answer to fight against these powers that b. i for one truly enjoy the art of writing because, well, it's free! it doesn't take any money to write (except perhaps a pen and paper). but even writing traditionally (which i recommend if you write poetry and/or fiction) is a rebelling against that order. writing is a mediative state, where you can understand the pitfalls and potentials of your own abilities by critically structuring your thoughts into syntax. every minute spent on bettering yourself is a minute not spent engaging in ad-revenue pop-ups.

the idea of blogging when i first started this blog was very discouraging. it seemed like the golden age of blogging had died (r.i.p. hipsterrunnoff), but i think nowadays we need blogging more than ever. we need these places where people are engaging in reading and writing. i know i personally need to write more, and i write often enough where i might seem crazy. but i guess what i want to get across here is not only to blog, but to write in a way that is not just for the sake of getting instant gratification by saying something deeming about another group of people/values. i think that writing for yourself is the first step towards writing to others, but if you can't you don't know how to write, you do not how to think.

by engaging in the act of writing, and having that writing submitted into a space where others can consume/critique/engage with it, one is participating in a greater good. and for those of us that write, you are truly being punk rock, which is cool af.

i hope to continue with this conquest and continue to blog, and you will too (because fuck the system)