People wonder how I’m doing. I tell them to read my blog. People wonder what I’m thinking. I tell them I wrote about it on my blog. People need ideas. I tell them that I’ll write about it. on my blog.
On one hand, I’m doing a wonderful job at finally taking some of the odd thoughts that go through my head and writing them somewhere. I’ve written them in the past in the collection of spiral notebooks on the shelf. I’ve spoken them in conversation. I’ve preached them, I’ve taught them, I’ve forgotten them as quickly as possible. So putting these thougths in public is a good thing.
However.
I am committing acts of communicative arrogance by expecting people who ask me questions to sit in front of a computer to find an answer that I gave sometime in the past. I think that I have a responsibility, when faced with people, to actually talk with them. By sending people here, as good as my words may be, I am denying the power of conversation. I am forbidding them the opportunity to correct me, to challenge me, to wrestle through the ideas with me.
To send face-to-face people here is to invite them to listen to my monologues rather than engaging in dialogue.
Is there a place for this writing? Absolutely. Am I glad that you are taking the time to read this? I am honored, more than you can imagine. Is there productive conversation that can happen in the comments section, in cross-posting? A thousand times yes.
Can I in good conscience depend on this mode alone to talk to the people geographically close to me? No.
Sorry.