Failure to change perspective is, in the end, simply failure. I think.

Recently, someone said to me "You write poetry, right?" I laughed. I said I used to write poetry. Now I write blog posts. This made me feel like some kind of sell out. I couldn't cut it as a poet, and so now I clutter the blogverse with rambling commentary. And obviously, this must be a bad thing. Or a step down.

Then I wondered: is it? Is it really so bad?

We talk about blogs as if they are some new, exciting method of communication. It's our way of connecting with other like minded people, sharing information, getting the words out of our heads and into something that seems somewhat more concrete. The truth is, all of this isn't new. It's just the current mutation of the age old habit of diary keeping, of writing social commentary, of meeting our fellow humans and making a connection with them. Blogs used to be printed in newspapers and magazines, in leaflets papering the local pub. When paper was a commodity, people used it to take the words out of their heads. Now it's the internet.

Admittedly, the wide availability of blogs has led to an overabundance of words thrown out there. Many of them aren't even all that interesting or good. Most will be forgotten over time and slowly rot away in the lost space in some server somewhere. There are a few, though, that will endure. This blog probably isn't one of the enduring ones. But that's ok with me. The idea of endurance is too overwhelming, the weight is too heavy. I'd rather stick with the idea that over time this will all be forgotten; it frees me to write honestly.

Is this any better or any worse than poetry? I'm beginning to think that I don't really know that answer to that question. I do know that I miss the craft I felt while working with poetry and I hope to one day recapture the drive to wrangle with words in such a way. For now, though, I'll take this online diary keeping for what it can offer me and skim the words out of my brain into some structure outside of myself.