As an only child my constant companions - apart from a set of eccentric parents - were books. From one of which the excellent advice above lodged itself into my brain and, apart from a brief flirtation with post-modernistic writing, has pretty much ruled the way I write ever since.
While starting at the beginning may sound like the only logical step to take it isn't really as easy as it sounds, is it? To take this statement at its most simplistic, many will be able to remind us that, in the beginning was the word. Even as a kid I used to think it was pretty unfair that nowhere was it actually specified which particular word that was. I spent many an idle hour pondering upon exactly that question (I was, admittedly, a somewhat weird kid), but never came up with a conclusive answer. Indeed, this is probably the first beef I was to come up with in regard to organised religion.
I hasten to add here that the above-mentioned eccentric parents never for one moment tried to coerce me into any religious ways of thought. This was done at the age of 11 when, as a pupil of a local Catholic school, I, along with other assorted pagans, was made to do extra Maths. lessons in lieue of R.E. or Benedictions or Mass...or any other Catholic ways of legitimately skiving off from regular education. As Maths. was my most hated subject I was recieved into the Catholic Church about three months after first enrolling at this fine institution. In retrospect, one of my companions in those enforced previews of purgatory, went on to become a maths wizard and finally, at the age of 16, settled definitively for herself the question of whether god existed with a set of formidable equations, thus escaping the years and years of religious angst . Angst which, in my case, at the age of 15 propelled me (literally) into the hands of a Catholic priest who imagined that trying to solve my existential crises of faith with his holy fingers in my knickers would jolly well teach me not to question the ways of god.
Right. Now to anyone wondering if all of the above may not be somehow straying from the point of how or why I consider a breathless world is waiting in anticipation of my venture into blogdem (not a word? Should be.) I counter with the explanation that I am merely illustrating, in somewhat tedious detail for those at the back, how starting at the beginning is not the easy or logical approach it seems at first glance. It throws up not only the conundrum with which I grappled as a small child, but the equally baffling one of what point anyone can consider to be the beginning of anything. Even a blog.
You'll notice that blog sites and Myspaces and place of that ilk never advise anyone to start at the beginning in their profiles. They provide precise headings and guidelines and categories to gently nudge us into that mind-boggling abyss of Telling Everyone All About Yourself. Whereas this bloody blog page squats there blankly asking only for a title. And anyone who has done their research knows that upon that title rests their future in blogdem (the word is patented and appropriated by now). Because no-one in their right mind is going to pause and peruse a blog entitled Every Boring Detail About Me, or Explaining Me and my Blogsite in numerous Disassociated Segues Into Irrelevance. (Actually, I think I might - in the hope that the person was going to be wildly amusing rather than tediously literal).
Look I know that Begin at the Beginning is not going to set the cursors of the world in my direction either, but any one of those Like Minded Souls one hopes is going to read a blog might just turn to it in the hopes that here, at last, will be the answer to that question of what the first bloody Word was that there was in the beginning. A quick flick up to the top of the page will lead them to the conclusion that it must have been "as". Which, it is to be admitted, is not a very inspiring word with which to begin things but which does have the advantage of providing, once and for all, a result to all the anxious casting about that may have occupied their spare time since childhood. And, on a personal note, serves the very satisfactory function of propelling me, gasping and spluttering into the the world of public blogdem.
While starting at the beginning may sound like the only logical step to take it isn't really as easy as it sounds, is it? To take this statement at its most simplistic, many will be able to remind us that, in the beginning was the word. Even as a kid I used to think it was pretty unfair that nowhere was it actually specified which particular word that was. I spent many an idle hour pondering upon exactly that question (I was, admittedly, a somewhat weird kid), but never came up with a conclusive answer. Indeed, this is probably the first beef I was to come up with in regard to organised religion.
I hasten to add here that the above-mentioned eccentric parents never for one moment tried to coerce me into any religious ways of thought. This was done at the age of 11 when, as a pupil of a local Catholic school, I, along with other assorted pagans, was made to do extra Maths. lessons in lieue of R.E. or Benedictions or Mass...or any other Catholic ways of legitimately skiving off from regular education. As Maths. was my most hated subject I was recieved into the Catholic Church about three months after first enrolling at this fine institution. In retrospect, one of my companions in those enforced previews of purgatory, went on to become a maths wizard and finally, at the age of 16, settled definitively for herself the question of whether god existed with a set of formidable equations, thus escaping the years and years of religious angst . Angst which, in my case, at the age of 15 propelled me (literally) into the hands of a Catholic priest who imagined that trying to solve my existential crises of faith with his holy fingers in my knickers would jolly well teach me not to question the ways of god.
Right. Now to anyone wondering if all of the above may not be somehow straying from the point of how or why I consider a breathless world is waiting in anticipation of my venture into blogdem (not a word? Should be.) I counter with the explanation that I am merely illustrating, in somewhat tedious detail for those at the back, how starting at the beginning is not the easy or logical approach it seems at first glance. It throws up not only the conundrum with which I grappled as a small child, but the equally baffling one of what point anyone can consider to be the beginning of anything. Even a blog.
You'll notice that blog sites and Myspaces and place of that ilk never advise anyone to start at the beginning in their profiles. They provide precise headings and guidelines and categories to gently nudge us into that mind-boggling abyss of Telling Everyone All About Yourself. Whereas this bloody blog page squats there blankly asking only for a title. And anyone who has done their research knows that upon that title rests their future in blogdem (the word is patented and appropriated by now). Because no-one in their right mind is going to pause and peruse a blog entitled Every Boring Detail About Me, or Explaining Me and my Blogsite in numerous Disassociated Segues Into Irrelevance. (Actually, I think I might - in the hope that the person was going to be wildly amusing rather than tediously literal).
Look I know that Begin at the Beginning is not going to set the cursors of the world in my direction either, but any one of those Like Minded Souls one hopes is going to read a blog might just turn to it in the hopes that here, at last, will be the answer to that question of what the first bloody Word was that there was in the beginning. A quick flick up to the top of the page will lead them to the conclusion that it must have been "as". Which, it is to be admitted, is not a very inspiring word with which to begin things but which does have the advantage of providing, once and for all, a result to all the anxious casting about that may have occupied their spare time since childhood. And, on a personal note, serves the very satisfactory function of propelling me, gasping and spluttering into the the world of public blogdem.
1 comment:
Gold for me! First cab off the rank and all that. Virgin blog, virgin comments. I have deflowered you.
Talking beginnings, it's not exactly the first world in the bible, but the first word of the first sentence of around 80%* of the sentences in the first chapter of the first book of the bible is "and". I always thought that was cool, given that it's a conjunction. Well, shows how everything's interconnected, innit?
Welcome to blogdem. Hope blogger's going to behave itself in China. It does look better, though, you gotta admit it, right? Compared to MySpace.
Talking you into blogger and also setting up a blogger account for another mate of mine got me all eager too, so I set up a new blog. If you click on my name, you'll find it. As I explain in the first post on that blog, my lack of anonymity turned into a problem for me. This one will be much more cloak and dagger.
So there you go. Catch you round there, and round here.
Your interwebs friend Miss Schlegel (aka Vanilla) xxx
* Just made that up.
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