A Fiftieth Essay, Hurrah!

www.essaysbysean.blogspot.com

Here it is, my fiftieth essay. Now, I may soon take a blessed break, after I blog my last half dozen or so from my website. Note to Lurkers: It's time to post a comment, because my break will be longer or shorter depending on comments.

Recently, while introducing myself to some folks at work that I was helping to train, I answered the question,"What is one thing that not many people know about you?" I replied that I write non academic essays as a hobby. They looked astonished. "And if that sounds boring, it is: No one ever reads more than one of my essays." People laughed.

I've had a web site (now being superceded by a blog site) for essays now for almost a year. My, such a variety of topics. It's surely been worth it. Essays are my art; I am driven create. It's been nice writing practice for me but... has there been any benefits for others? Any readership at all?

All of my web site e-mail comments (except one) have been from people who know me in real life. Meanwhile, Rivkah, a comic book artist from Austin, (recently moved to New York) has advised me to switch to doing a blog because then my hard work would have a chance to reach a wider audience. Or in my case, maybe, a chance to reach any audience at all.

Hence this blog.

When I started I wondered, as a joke, if I should do as I had read of in the newspaper and fake my gender, age and occupation.

I wondered, seriously, if I should have fun by revealing my geographic location a bit at a time. I could sign myself as first being from the northern hemisphere, then North America, then west of the Mississippi... But I remembered essayist Wendell Berry. He pointed out how not only are we not a colony of New York city, not part of "Anywhere U.S.A.," but that our home area matters very much. Almost right from the start of doing my own essays I realized Berry was right. It matters that I write as a male of middle age on the plains...

I can't resist a queer digression: A blog? You know, it's too bad we only live once, too bad I don't have time to do more than just one blog. Otherwise I could write a diary blog as a hero, a cheerleader who saves the world- while slaying vampires ...

I got my start in writing as a volunteer university journalist. I guess every student reporter has the experience of sitting behind a guy in the cafeteria, or on the bus, as he is reading your new exciting newspaper... only to see him flipping pages rapidly, reading only a line or two from every second article. It's always nice for a reporter to have such a reality check. Nice and humbling.

I've only watched one person, a busy friend, read any of my on line essays, and I notice he quickly scrolls down to my name and then, I suspect, he tries to jump to my conclusion -without having time to notice the scroll bar is still high, indicating footnotes to follow.

As noted in my 25th essay, though, conclusions aren't always visible. In high school we were taught to make a conclusion by "plagiarizing ourselves" by rewording slightly what we had already said in the opening. We were never clear on just why were were to do this. Couldn't readers just scroll with their eyes back to what our topic-thesis was? The answer given by essayist Paul Graham, in his web piece on The Age of the Essay, is that such an ending is derived from ancient "concluding remarks to the jury." That sounds right.

Using the internet medium means my essays are much shorter than essays in print, such as Berry's, still, despite the example of others on the web, I won't go to the extreme of hastily written short stuff. No sound bites. My audience does not include the dull eyed, nor the pouting cynics who challenge the 'net to entertain them. I hope to appeal to enthusiasts, to people who will always find or make their entertainment without blaming the world for their boredom. Or maybe learn to embrace stillness. (I have.)

I believe: If I find myself skimming essays, or swiftly surfing, or TV channel flipping, then that is a sign that something is wrong, and I really should stop... until I know what's going on. Stop until I can answer: Why, at this moment, am I avoiding life? Guilt, maybe? Naturaly, most people aren't like me. The same folks who won't eat their soup luke warm will take a luke warm "merely skimming" approach to essays, and that's OK for them, I guess: Thousands of computer users can't all be wrong. Still, I just can't bring myself to purposely write for those who would skim. I certainly won't insert redundancies for those who might have blinked while reading.

Like a song-writing guitarist who won't "sell out" to the vast public, I will always write for a minority, for folks who can focus.

Sean Crawford

feeling a sense of accomplishment

February, 2009

revised for blog December 2009