Blogging: We’re going to need more monkeys
Assuming you have a blog, how often have you been asked that question? My answer usually goes something like this: “Um, well, that’s sort of hard to explain. It’s sort of like talking to me, without so many random obscure references to subjects we’re not even discussing. Also, while writing, I’m not distracted by blank stares or someone constantly interrupting with questions pertaining to what on God’s green earth I’m talking about.” Seriously, my blog is about what the header says it’s about: thoughts and commentary from my ADD mind. At least, that’s how it started out. But I was reading an old book by Robert Fulghum called “It Was on Fire When I Lay Down on It” that sums it up much better in the introduction:
Show and Tell was the very best part of school for me, as a student and as a teacher. Not recess or lunch, but that special time set aside each week for students to bring something important to class to share and talk about.
As a kid, I put more into getting ready for my turn to present than I put into the rest of my homework. Show-and-Tell was real in a way that much of what I learned in school was not. It was education that came out of my life experience. And there weren’t a lot of rules about Show-and-Tell — you could do your thing without getting red-penciled or gonged to your seat.
As a teacher, I was always surprised by what I learned from these amateur hours. A kid I was sure I knew well would reach down into the paper bag he carried and fish out some odd-shaped treasure and attach meaning to it beyond my most extravagant expectation. It was me, the teacher, who was being taught at such moments.
Again and again I learned that what I thought was only true to me…only valued by me…only cared about by me…was common property.
Show-and-Tell was a bit disorderly and unpredictable. What the presentations lacked in conventional structure was compensated for by passion for the subject at hand.
The principles guiding this [blog] are not far from the spirit of Show-and-Tell. It is my stuff from home — that place in my mind and heart where I most truly live.
And so, to my old friends and new; to my lurkers and my prolific commenters; to those of you whose blogs I read on a regular basis and others I check in on from time to time — Thank you. Thank you for allowing me to share my stuff and for sharing your stuff with me. Thank you for allowing me to be silly, sarcastic, serious, sappy, self-righteous, and a bunch of other “S” words. I’m a better writer, listener and dare I say better person for the experience.
This is not a “Goodbye Hey Look a Chicken” post. Just a “Thanks for the Memories So Far” post.
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