Essay: Comparing Blogs

To compare blogs, I randomly selected a blog from the list on Nanotext’s page. I chose Claire Marie’s blog, “How Small?” Claire and I have never met, and exchanged maybe twenty words in the course of the class. Upon reading her blog, I have found several ideas that tie into the concepts I chose to explore in my own blog “Writing Small, Thinking Big.” Ideas we shared were: life as an art form, initial disgust to TTTE, and words and their powers.
Claire proposes several ideas on the topic of art. One idea is that art will be the downfall of the human race. She elucidates that humans are always trying to push their limits of art, and one day someone will push the limit too far and the human race will suffer. Claire uses Jeff Luty as an example. Luty pushed the technological advance of his nants purely for the art of his creation. I think that Claire’s ideas really tied into my ideas about art. I used an example of a whitewater kayaker, and said that by paddling off of a treacherous waterfall the kayaker was creating art. My reasoning was that art is based on emotion and at that moment the kayaker is feeling extreme emotions, and art can be found by association of the viewer with his emotions. I think that my example of the kayaker fits with Claire’s views on art. He is pushing his limits; he wants to see how big he can go before the power of nature smacks him down. Claire describes this idea as a power trip; the kayaker likes to feel in control of nature by demonstrating his ability to go where no man has gone before. By constantly pushing the limits, these artists doom themselves to fail. If the kayaker persists in his habit of waterfall diving, one day he is bound to find out that a waterfall is too shallow and crack his skull. If Luty succeeds in creating the perfect nants, he will effectively destroy the world. However, I described an example where an art form taken to its limit does not cause the downfall of humanity. In the Filth, there rages a fierce battle between two sides over control of the I-life. If Hughes’ buyer Simon wins, he will corrupt the I-Life into perverted evil forms. But instead, I-life is saved by Greg feely, and they evolve into kind smart symbionts that benefit humans (as they were originally designed to do). I feel that this form of art, when taken to its limits, will not cause the destruction of humans.
Claire and I both discussed the power of words and language. However, we took fairly different approaches to the similar ideas. Claire focused on the power that is held in a single word, proclaiming that this power is infinite because of the infinite meanings it holds to different people. Thus, one single word holds as much power as a single orphid connected to the infinite possibilities of the orphidnet. In my blogging, I came up with the concept of “the word” as I found it in The Ticket. I explored the possibility that language was a curse, because we cannot rid ourselves of language no matter how hard we try. I think that my ideas are based on a logic that is similar to hers; we cannot rid ourselves of words because they are interconnected with our thoughts so much that they are inseparable.
Reading through other peoples blogs, I came upon Claire’s thoughts on the Urb from Ribofunk. I really liked her thoughts that the Urb is a god-like being. In one of my blogs, I referenced Claire’s ideas and agreed with them. I thought that this was the best story in Ribofunk, and I was glad to see that someone else had the same reaction as I did.
As far as our different styles of blogging, I feel that we both included snippets of our personal feelings into our blogs. Claire often explores how she would react if she were put into situations similar to the ones in the texts. From her blogs, the reader can get a sense of her mentality and attitude. I feel that I included less of my personal thoughts in my blog, or at least disguised them a little. I found that while blogging, I liked to explore the mental states of those in an altered (not chemically) state of mind, such as a kayaker or someone listening to music. I think I chose these examples because in my free time I enjoy such activities, kayaking off of waterfalls and such. So the examples I chose were not me directly, but rather an illustration of how I view myself.
I enjoyed reading Claire’s blog and gaining perspectives that I had never thought of. I am glad that we explored several similar ideas in our blogs. I think I would love it if all of my classes used blogs, as it is great to see what other people are thinking beyond what they say in class. Alas, student privacy and plagiarism codes will prevail, and I think this opportunity is fairly rare in a college class.