More Blogging, Less Thinking

draft

This post has an uncertain lifespan. It is not clear if I will keep it online for the long term. I might just let it go out there for a few days, and then pull it back. We will see.

There are a variety of changes around here and they will be reflected in my blog. Those of you who seem to track this blog will notice a difference, and I wanted to both forewarn you and explain things.

The big idea goes something like this.

This blog was created and written in one stage of my life in order to achieve certain goals. For the most part, these goals have been achieved although of course there is much more to do. Although I did not write enough of the two books that are planned, I have certainly written enough to have valid writing samples. With a little luck, these longer term goals, for example, describing the early computer animation community of the 1980s in Los Angeles, will be expanded upon and will eventually make it into print. And hopefully several other themes will also get written, some of them may even get a lot of attention.

But in other ways, the blog has to change. First, the illusion of being self-supporting is not tenable. And it was this illusion that allowed me the freedom to write on certain topics at length. I will still do that from time to time, but not as much as before. Probably, I will be working under even more constrained circumstances. And these circumstances are fair. This is how the government and my peers treat people like me, and only the stupid or the criminally naive do not know it. Second, as time has passed, it has become clear to me that certain things that I took for granted, such as that our government was operating in good faith, or that people were my peers when it came to certain matters, have not turned out to be true.  Third, it is very clear that many people, even friends of mine, do not take me all that seriously, even though they may think that I am amusing from time to time.

The results as it applies to this blog is as follows. The posts will probably be shorter, more diverse in topic, less “reasonable” when it comes to strong assertions. It has been said about me that “I do not pull my punches”. What is odd about this is that in fact I do pull my punches, or at least I have in the past. Now, I am more likely to just tell you what I think if I believe that the evidence is obvious, and hope you can follow along.

There is a joke that goes something like “if you are going to tell the truth, you had better be funny, otherwise people will kill you”. I will try to remember this.

Also, when you have nothing to lose, why be tactful? The fact is, there are a lot of things about our society that annoys me. Why not discuss them? The fact is that I have been treated like garbage by my field, and it annoys me. Why not talk about it? What is the downside? Are people going to like me less? I doubt it. My friends already know (mostly) what I think, and the people who are not friends might be surprised by my reality, even in one case shocked, but that is actually something of a compliment for a blog writer.

At one point, I thought that through good work and patience, learning new skills, being polite, etc, I would eventually get some recognition, get some projects, demonstrate my more mature talents and so forth, but that did not work out. Today most of my friends who are successful play the corporate game (probably, in their estimation, to be allowed to keep being successful), so they are not going to help. If, then, as it appears, that whatever I do to fix this will not rely on the good will of my peers, or at least my colleagues if they are not peers, why not tell them what I think?

Hey, maybe it will even help. You never know.