Beginnings

I've taken a long time to make this leap into cyberspace. Honestly, I've lacked courage. I expect I will make a fool of myself before too long, embarrass the Archbishop or scandalize my brother Priests, but somehow those prospects don't bother me at the moment, and I am feeling brazen enough to begin.

As I learned back in my existentialist days, authentic dialogue can only take place between two people; if there are three or more, you can't help playing to the gallery. I believe this, so I don't have any illusions about the quality of what I post, nor about the quality of your replies. I suspect that writing a blog is an exercise in posturing anyway, inherently harmful to the soul. Maybe I'll come to my senses and ditch the whole thing, go back to cultivating my own little garden in peace and quiet, keeping my head down, my nose clean, and my mouth shut.

Maybe this in itself is vanity: presuming that anyone will read what I post, that it's of any importance at all, that anybody will care. Maybe I'll just fulfill a cyber version of that bit of song from -- who was it, Joan Baez? -- that went "... and I shall hurtle into space / and for all my damned commotion / leave no trace."

So here's a bit of commotion hurtling into cyberspace, or perhaps just sitting in the blogosphere gathering e-dust; I don't know the appropriate metaphor. Either way, now it is, and I don't know that I or anyone else is the better for it. But I have my doubts.