Writing 200 Blog Post 22 - The End

Write a reflection on your blogging life. What have you learned about keeping a blog this semester? Is blogging something you will continue to do past this semester? Why or why not?   

Here it is, the last blog post for this class. I'd be lying if I said it wasn't a bit of a relief—the Friday deadline on these assignments has been the bane of my existence this semester. But on another level, it feels like the sad end of my blogging era.

As someone perusing the depths of my blog might see, I'm pretty much an expert at this. I started blogging in January of 2021, and since then I've written over 50 posts. It's been a storied career, and a life I won't soon forget, but I don't think I'll take up the mantle again unless academic necessity calls. I'll likely take one more writing class to get my minor, but I'm considering trying a poetry class or something a little less bloggy.

That's not to say that I haven't enjoyed this. Casting my words into something slightly less void-like has been fun for a while, and the 38 views I got on my most popular article will forever remind me of these days of fame and glory. I hope that as I move forward in life I can tap into the same manic energy I have at 11:45 with a 300-word blog post due by midnight. 

And I also hope I can show my writing to some people, sometimes. Receiving comments (and even better, having friends mention my blog posts to me in real life) was a fun experience. So was the idea that even if the odds are preposterously stacked against me, there's always a chance for almost anyone to see and resonate with something I wrote. The internet has done many things, a huge number of them negative, but I think it's provided to a greater number of people the idea that their words can leave some sort of semi-permanent impression on the world. And though blogging is a very outmoded means toward that end, I'll admit I felt the appeal at times.

But no more. I go now into the cold oblivion of unpublished, unheard anonymity. Many have ventured, few have returned. To anyone who reads this five, fifty, five hundred years from now: know that the work housed here was not who I am. Know that the deepest chambers of my soul were never open to this base medium, that the words I wrote with the greatest fire I wrote elsewhere. Know this, and imagine them as eloquent as they could never be.

See ya later, alligator.

Writing 200 Blog Post 21 - Philosophy

Philosophers hypothesize

Their silver tongues and distant eyes

Transmuting their perceptions into Truth

And all the while a smiling child

With eyes that trust in every mile

Is all that's needed, long-awaited proof

That faith is not a game of odds

A prelude to a pregnant pause

In which the waiting wears us down to dust
But hope imbued with certainty

You plant a seed with faith a tree

Will bear its fruit someday; not that it must

But that it's better to believe

A future rich with buds and leaves

Than one that's choked to death with smog and grime

You plant the tree—you've done your bit

In bringing on this future. It

Can only be uncovered now by time.

You live your life, you tend your tree

And doubts creep in, but you can see

Such great potential lying in the sprout

That silly thoughts and what-if games

Are banished from the realm of names

Though they slip back each time you drive them out

And when too old for work and art—

Those bits of life, those better parts

Have vanished in a frenzied game of haste—

You see the tree memorialize

Your youth, your bright and hopeful eyes

A doubt creeps in. And was it all a waste?

Philosophers hypothesize

"The tree must grow, increase in size;

"The final cause demands it. Q.E.D"

And you stare at the dying wood

While those who think it must, it should

Sit back upon their heels and watch it bleed

And on this sight your final breath

Is dissipated. In your death

You form the words "I love you." Who knows why.

Some old fanatic, they suppose

Whose mind was poisoned with a load

Of fairy-stories, led to live a lie.

But on that day the tree grows strong

Emboldened by the final song

And soon it's bringing fruit into the sun

The crowd rejoices in their pride

That by their knowledge they have pried

An offering up from the barren ground. 

And as they grasp the drooping fruits

The tree grows faster, sends its roots

Around their bodies, pulls them close around.

And all at once, they finally see

The cause of this prosperity

Was not their thoughts and theories, not their words

But just an act of simple good

And trust that someday one seed would

Turn out to be a haven for the birds