Of Blogs, Speaking and Listening
This blog was started way back in 2007. I saw it as yet another space to comment, state opinions, share views / thoughts, and initiate dialogue with whoever cared to listen. It was the time when the number of blogs appearing on the web was on a meteoric rise. The number of blogs that I was trying to follow and keep track of, was likewise increasing at a similar speed. Over a period of time, the blogs I read and followed as well as scouting for new blogs regularised based on certain criteria that evolved for me. Perhaps many web readers went through their own processes of filtering and managing reading content through blogs.
However somewhere in the above mentioned process, I had reached a saturation point for reading and more importantly, subscribing to new blogs. I had just before then started my own blog, but never posted anything on it. This saturation point and the burgeoning blogger population completely derailed my blog and put me on a different thought track:
There are a good number of blogs that are organisational, specific to themes, providing commentaries on news and politics, and also used as tools by influential sections of the society to direct opinion and so on. Now these sort of groups already have many platforms, media including the internet, to put forward their presentations. I feel they started to come up in a big way through blogs as a result of the increasing number of individual bloggers. The population of individual bloggers who use blogs as their personal online journals far outnumbered other types of blogs, enough to call it a blogging community. Neither do I know of any study or analysis that can substantiate this nor have I tried to investigate or search further. There are several related issues and instances here that have been discussed and thrashed, including copyright, monitoring and control, and political ramifications of blogs' statements and stands and so on.
But an important point for me to take off with was that there were (and are) a zillion people and more out there wanting to share their lives and very often through very intimate and detailed narrations. I remember that one of my reactions to this was a feeling of voyeurism, and consequently distaste. Beyond reactions came the recognition that each one of us has so much to, just, say. One commonality that seems to go beyond all man-made distinctions, is this need to share feelings and thoughts. Everyone wants to have their say. But who is truly listening? Who is truly reading the blogs? That is, listening to understand, and for care-ful engagement. Reading to understand, and for care-ful engagement. Commenting and / or critiquing is only second in line to listening. Once someone wise said to a group of us that "when two people are in conversation, one is talking, and the other is waiting to talk! So who is listening?"
This phenomenon is happening with me and all around as well. The blogosphere is simply a virtual extension of the real world. The elderly simply want to talk and share but the next generation(s) do not want to slow down to listen; children are all the time stating their needs if only parents knew how to listen without overlaying their assumptions and conditioning; citizens are screaming their protests and petitions but there is no political will or responsibility to listen; the farmers are saying it loud and clear through their suicides, and continue to say it in the faith that the world (and God) will listen well enough to turn the tide in a decisively positive direction. Are we listening? However, the picture is perhaps not as bleak as I make it out to be. Not everyone is not listening all of the time. Some one(s) may be listening some of the times. Our minister, J Ramesh is perhaps one such.
Herein lies my hope. There is something to be said for optimism. I see from the bloggers in my own circle of family, friends and co-workers that each one's blogging world / community is a reflection of their social circle outside of it. The same set of people primarly exist in both worlds for each of us. Maybe then all the bloggers blog in the faith that some one in their world is listening, if not there is always an exploring passerby. Maybe this is simply one more way of engaging and sharing that we indulge in wanting our own people to listen to us. Just like my elderly relatives who continue to reach out to me tirelessly, like my niece who continues to demand and insist indomitably, like the educational community that I am part of which continues to petition the government doggedly, like a farmer friend who continues to pursue his ideal against all odds, all in faith.
A rather heavy and round-about way of saying that perhaps I want to say some things too through my own blog and add to the cacophony! But I vow to listen before saying, listen more before commenting, try to understand before critiquing, and be flexible enough to listen more and deeply and change if necessary.
May 2010
----------------------------------------------------------------------
28th Feb 2015, A corollary to this post: Of Listening and Self Discipline
24th Feb 2015, Another related post: The Point of an Oxymoron
This blog was started way back in 2007. I saw it as yet another space to comment, state opinions, share views / thoughts, and initiate dialogue with whoever cared to listen. It was the time when the number of blogs appearing on the web was on a meteoric rise. The number of blogs that I was trying to follow and keep track of, was likewise increasing at a similar speed. Over a period of time, the blogs I read and followed as well as scouting for new blogs regularised based on certain criteria that evolved for me. Perhaps many web readers went through their own processes of filtering and managing reading content through blogs.
However somewhere in the above mentioned process, I had reached a saturation point for reading and more importantly, subscribing to new blogs. I had just before then started my own blog, but never posted anything on it. This saturation point and the burgeoning blogger population completely derailed my blog and put me on a different thought track:
There are a good number of blogs that are organisational, specific to themes, providing commentaries on news and politics, and also used as tools by influential sections of the society to direct opinion and so on. Now these sort of groups already have many platforms, media including the internet, to put forward their presentations. I feel they started to come up in a big way through blogs as a result of the increasing number of individual bloggers. The population of individual bloggers who use blogs as their personal online journals far outnumbered other types of blogs, enough to call it a blogging community. Neither do I know of any study or analysis that can substantiate this nor have I tried to investigate or search further. There are several related issues and instances here that have been discussed and thrashed, including copyright, monitoring and control, and political ramifications of blogs' statements and stands and so on.
But an important point for me to take off with was that there were (and are) a zillion people and more out there wanting to share their lives and very often through very intimate and detailed narrations. I remember that one of my reactions to this was a feeling of voyeurism, and consequently distaste. Beyond reactions came the recognition that each one of us has so much to, just, say. One commonality that seems to go beyond all man-made distinctions, is this need to share feelings and thoughts. Everyone wants to have their say. But who is truly listening? Who is truly reading the blogs? That is, listening to understand, and for care-ful engagement. Reading to understand, and for care-ful engagement. Commenting and / or critiquing is only second in line to listening. Once someone wise said to a group of us that "when two people are in conversation, one is talking, and the other is waiting to talk! So who is listening?"
This phenomenon is happening with me and all around as well. The blogosphere is simply a virtual extension of the real world. The elderly simply want to talk and share but the next generation(s) do not want to slow down to listen; children are all the time stating their needs if only parents knew how to listen without overlaying their assumptions and conditioning; citizens are screaming their protests and petitions but there is no political will or responsibility to listen; the farmers are saying it loud and clear through their suicides, and continue to say it in the faith that the world (and God) will listen well enough to turn the tide in a decisively positive direction. Are we listening? However, the picture is perhaps not as bleak as I make it out to be. Not everyone is not listening all of the time. Some one(s) may be listening some of the times. Our minister, J Ramesh is perhaps one such.
Herein lies my hope. There is something to be said for optimism. I see from the bloggers in my own circle of family, friends and co-workers that each one's blogging world / community is a reflection of their social circle outside of it. The same set of people primarly exist in both worlds for each of us. Maybe then all the bloggers blog in the faith that some one in their world is listening, if not there is always an exploring passerby. Maybe this is simply one more way of engaging and sharing that we indulge in wanting our own people to listen to us. Just like my elderly relatives who continue to reach out to me tirelessly, like my niece who continues to demand and insist indomitably, like the educational community that I am part of which continues to petition the government doggedly, like a farmer friend who continues to pursue his ideal against all odds, all in faith.
A rather heavy and round-about way of saying that perhaps I want to say some things too through my own blog and add to the cacophony! But I vow to listen before saying, listen more before commenting, try to understand before critiquing, and be flexible enough to listen more and deeply and change if necessary.
May 2010
----------------------------------------------------------------------
28th Feb 2015, A corollary to this post: Of Listening and Self Discipline
24th Feb 2015, Another related post: The Point of an Oxymoron
