I've been thinking lately about how there are so many things in my life that are really unbloggable...
The main thing that comes to mind is my martial arts training. I can't really talk about what I do, who my teachers are, or the amazing things I learn and practice... I'd love to, but it wouldn't help anyone do anything except endlessly intellectualize about things that need to be seen and felt to be understood.
It's similar in some respects to Sufism or other forms of mystic experiences such as are found in Zen...
I think that this is also part of the problem with talking about war in any far-removed context. There is no immediate experience of the sort that really gives you an understanding of the meaning involved. Intellectualizing without experience leads to seemingly impassioned arguments entirely devoid of a real understanding of effects or consequences... Pure sophistry...
This sort of thing is so common in martial arts, it's extremely difficult to avoid. Perusing rec.martial-arts reveals tons of 100+ post threads titled "What is the best MA?" or "Striking vs. Grappling", in which the posters endlessly argue points of strategy most of them know almost nothing about...
I guess what I'm thinking about is the boundary of the net's efficacy for the exchange of understanding, which is also the boundary of that ability in language in general. The things that cannot be conveyed through language should be kept out of any forum for debate, because that debate can't achieve any new understanding of the issue...
Whenever there are new and seemingly utopian visions, for instance with regard to the potential for blogging, I feel much reassured about my understanding of things when I can begin to see the limits of those visions. It brings me back into the realm of reality... :)
Interesting thoughts. I suppose I'm not looking to write about every experience on my weblog, so I haven't thought of it that way. But it's a feeling I'm very familiar with in (attempting) writing poetry. To the extent that it developed for a while into a circularity whereby I wanted only to write poetry about the difficulty of writing poetry, and have had to quit for a while whilst I consider how and why I want to put things into words.
Language is incredibly unrepresentative of thoughts though, and all our communication is crippled to the extent that it has to pass through this stuttered flow of conceptual packets. Sharing context, being in physical proximity and/or having more time to spend on it are always going to aid communication. I don't feel that this fact invalidates communication via more "lossy" media though. I've held that additional communication is always desireable, but you bring out some great points about the merit of focussing on how certain subjects can be better addressed.
Posted by: dan at March 17, 2003 10:50 AM