poser

Putzing around with this web log - or "blog," in the techie vernacular - has been quite enjoyable in the week since I've started it. It occupies my time for either five minutes or an hour at a time, and when you have a small baby it's those projects that require no predetermined time commitment that are probably the most successfully completed. When I go for a walk with Justin and The Woof, Justin and I often use that time to catch up on our days (most of the time), learn about each other's past a little more (sometimes), or ponder our future (most rare, but also most fun). Lately, though, walking solo in the mornings (or at least with a little person who doesn't give me much feedback at this point), I think about topics that I can write about in this blog. The ideas come fast and furious; only one or two actually stick by the time I take the dog's leash off in my driveway, if I'm lucky. I haven't felt this creative since I was 13 and writing poems about losing my true love...for the fourth time that year.

One of these topic ideas - albeit not the most creative one - was about the history of the blog itself. I thought I would do a bit of research about the phenom that is the blog and elaborate a bit for those readers who might be new to blogs (i.e. my parents, and, truth be told, myself). Quickly scanning Wikipedia's entry on the history of blogging, what caught my eye is how blogs are now a kind of news medium, usurping more traditional media outlets like the daily paper and the evening newscast. Now, I don't consider this blog to be a serious news source in any way, shape or form (unless making you read my self-indulgent stream of consciousness is considered news), but it did make me think about the authenticity of what I write about. And I immediately thought about that philosophic little quote from Faust I put in the top right corner over there.

Well, apparently it was from Faust. I couldn't really be sure. If blogs are fast becoming a news source, my journalistic integrity compels me to disclose that I've never actually read Faust, nor - prior to again referring to Wikipedia - was I sure what it was even about. I just really liked that quote, which I "borrowed" from a web site dedicated to inspirational thoughts. (You see, I really do believe that attitude is everything, and that perspective is the difference between believing you've won the lottery of life or wallowing the time away in your own self pity. But that's not the point.) Faust, it seems, is a tale about a bargain made between some dude and the devil; if The Simpsons is any kind of news source, the brouhaha is over a donut.

This is all well and good, I thought. Now I will know the general tale of Faust if anyone calls me on it. But my problem, I realized, was that a pact with the devil seems to be a pretty popular thing to write about, so I still really had no idea where that actual quote I posted came from. And while omniscient Google revealed that Johann Wolfgang von Goethe was the scribe of the particular version of Faust in question, I still feel like enough of a poser that I now have to read the damn thing.