Catch-22: My First Post

I don't know if it's possible to maintain a blog without coming across as pretentious.  Nothing says "I have opinions" quite like suggesting your blogspot or wordpress to someone.  My first inclination to avoid coming across that way is to make a few sarcastic comments about the self-absorbed nature of bloggers, but even that comes across as high-minded.  For that matter, so does using cliched expressions for titles...  So I suppose, either way, I'm trapped and marching backwards.  However, that does bring me to the reason I'm writing this, my first post on my first blog, entitled "Häxprocess," which just so happens to be a Swedish word for "witch trial."

How ambiguous.

And pretentious.

My motivation for finally starting a blog stems from an increasing need to get ideas out of my head.  More and more, I find myself writing in ways that unintentionally cross genre lines.  "It's not fiction," the critics would complain (if I had any), "but it's not autobiographical, but it's not an essay.  How pretentious!"  A blog seems like the appropriate place to unravel some crazy ideas -- even more appropriately so, one that's titled after witch burnings.

In my experience, all writers have those House M.D./Sherlock Holmes moments where an epiphany explodes in their brains and they immediately drop the weed-whacker, the groceries, or the baby and make a mad dash for the computer or a dog-eared, 3-subject, 100% recycled Meade pad with 250 pages (most of which are still blank) containing all their disorderly scribbles.  My brilliant thoughts always seem to come upon me when I'm in the shower, usually when I'm only halfway done washing.  "Of course," I would think, if I could risk thinking anything, because the idea in my mind is only semi-formed and infinitely fragile.  A moment's distraction could shatter it irreparably.

I've discovered that what I need, much more than a waterproof notebook or a better voice-to-text device that can decipher my exasperated screams over the sound of running water, is a new kind of sounding board.  I've done the Fictionpress thing, the Facebook notes, and even the MySpace bulletins of ancient times, but none of those were terribly fulfilling venues.  Granted, a new blog on a network of millions of similar self-searching blogs isn't likely to see the type of traffic that I imagine would really spur me to write productively, but it's certainly a means of breaking myself out of the conventional privacy of word processing software.  It's at least a move in the right direction.

On a more serious note, as a Bible-believing Christian who hates denominations and arguments over Christian liberties, I've been branching out into more and more forums in order to share both encouragement and personal conviction as I study the Scriptures in a lifelong journey to become a better worshipper of Christ.  Perhaps being outspoken about my faith comes across as the most pretentious thing about me (even more so than my frequent references to my MacBook and progressive rock), but it is my earnest hope that future posts concerning Biblical living will be as revealing to you as they will be humbling for me to write.  It is my intention to share what the Spirit lays on my heart -- not in a judgmental way, but in such a manner as to incite genuine self-evaluation and provoke mutual worship of the Father.

I told my wife recently that I think the act of creating something is an act of mirroring our Creator.  I think He imbued within us the desire to make.  He gave us eyes and ears to acknowledge beauty, and hands to replicate it.  The problem is that art can only be considered art if there's someone to witness it.  I can write the greatest novel man has ever seen, but therein lies the problem: it isn't literature until it's been read.  If a tree falls deep in a forest...  Well, you know.

And so I've circled back to my original thought: my craving for attention (let's call it what it is), which has led me to publish a blog -- my attempt to follow Orr to Sweden and "break the lousy chain of inherited habit."  Maybe that sounds melodramatic.  Regardless, it's why I'm here: to share my thoughts, imaginations, and convictions, all in the name of making the world a better place, starting with the internet.  Maybe the world will want to hear what I have to say.  Or maybe they'll want to tie a false nose to my face and burn me at the stake instead.

Nothing pretentious about that at all.