It has been almost ten days since I have been able to read properly. The bug I picked on my recent travels along with severe conjunctivitis turned out to be a forced vacation from screens. I am woefully behind on emails and also on my reading. And as usual, I caught up with some of my favorite bloggers, Dave Winer and John Gruber. And as I sped through their writing, it finally clicked.
What people don’t realize about blogs is that they are never a complete story. They are incomplete and by nature more mysterious, more episodic, and thus more interesting. Blogs are meant not to leave you with everything. The whole idea is to think to deliberate, and to come back again and again, to finish what was started a long time ago. But there is no end, just a pause, for a voice to start, talking again. I think somewhere along the line I forgot what it is to blog.
Traditional media has incorporated the perceived casualness of blogs into their traditions, but they never got the continuation, the idea of voice, a singular vision and the daily journey. It is what made blogs different. And as we start to think of a blog revival, I am reminded of the design philosophy of Victorian builder and gardener Henry Peto. He would create gardens that gave you this sense of near and a wonder of beyond but never giving away the whole picture. And that’s precisely what blogs do. That’s what Dave does. That’s Gruber’s log. The words made you understand the writer, and the person.
Anyway, I hope you have a great weekend.
June 15, 2018. San Francisco.
