A creative writing exercise...or an exercise in futility?

So...I find myself taking my initial plunge into what has become known as the "blogosphere" (an expression I truly detest, perhaps second only to the use of "Google" as a verb - I refuse to "Google something"), thereby becoming a part of something with which I am not completely comfortable. So why, you may ask, am I doing this? Good question; I hope I can provide a good answer for both of us.

One reason is to give me some focus for one of the few things which I have ever claimed to do with any proficiency, i.e. writing. As an old friend and former boss used to say, when you start a fire, blow smoke on yourself first. I've always been a good writer; damned good, in fact. During my brief tenure in sales at a radio station where I worked for a number of years, the station manager said I was the best copywriter he ever had. A number of my college professors asked if I had ever considered a career as a writer. And let me be honest, it wasn't good test scores that got me through college, it was the ability to put together a good research paper.

I mentioned focus; although never officially diagnosed, I fully believe I have ADHD, or ADD, or whatever the hell it's called. When children were first being diagnosed with Attention Deficit Disorder, I sought out my college psych professor to discuss this. I listed traits I had which were similar to those being treated for this newly diagnosed condition, to which he replied that it was nothing to worry about, this wasn't anything that affected adults. At the time, no one in the psychiatric community diagnosed anyone but children with ADD; we now know that adults as well as children can be affected. My hope is that by forcing myself to sit down and committing my thoughts, musings, ramblings, whatever, I can bring myself to focus on other things as well.

About that business of not being comfortable with this process...stepping out of one's comfort zone is the best way to overcome the fear associated with that. I have a lot - a lot - of things about myself with which I'm not comfortable, and one of my goals (not resolutions - more on that topic later) for 2008 is to try to step out of as many comfort zones as I can. I'm a very private person, even to most people who have known me for years, so expressing myself in a medium which can be read by potentially millions of people is a little unsettling, to say the least (although my guess is that only a few friends will read this, but who knows? It might actually be read by someone to whom I don't owe five bucks and/or a six-pack of beer).

A word about bloggers: my impression is that there are two types. There are those, like myself, who use this new medium as a way to express oneself creatively, share random thoughts, blow off steam, keep what is essentially a public journal, that sort of thing. No aspirations of changing the world. The other type of bloggers are the twits who fancy themselves to be actual journalists, like the MorOn.org crowd at such websites as the Daily Kos (most of these asshats tend to blog for left-wing sites, but there are a number of similar right-wing sites as well; the Daily Kos to me is simply the most blatant example of the overinflated sense of self-importance afflicting these clowns). As far as I can tell, the only time political bloggers have made a difference is exposing the Dan Rather/Mary Mapes fraudulent documents concerning President Bush's military records, but then I don't pay attention to those people. My friend Alex K. used to write what was called a blog, but he was a legitimate newspaper reporter and this was merely an online column he was paid to write, so I consider that to be an entirely different animal from some Generation X slacker with an axe to grind taking time between World of Warcraft sessions to tell everyone in the blogosphere (there's that word again) how much he hates Republicans. That, my friends, ain't journalism.

So where do we go with this thing? You tell me, Nostradamus. I have a few ideas for some future posts, but we'll see if they make it to this forum, and what shape they'll take. I'm sure a number of random thoughts will find their way here. There will probably be a few laughs, some legitimately thoughtful observations, you'll likely get pissed off at me at some point; hopefully, it won't be a waste of anyone's time. I already feel like it's been time well spent.