Interpretation as self-understanding that does not know its name

I got a comment here some weeks ago from the_tower, a student of Chinese, Psychology and Japanese at the University of California at Berkeley. It was in response to a previous post of mine on something that he had written. His comment marked an advance for me. So far, bar Bea who is family (my niece), I have not attracted readers to, or comments on, my blog! Admittedly, I had asked the_tower to comment, but even so ...

I paste the_tower's comment (I have added a few links to it). He wrote:
    

Hi, sorry for getting back so late.
I don't know what TrackBack is, so I doubt I got anything from you. I did read this post in response to your comment on my LJ [Live Journal].
To be honest I'm a little surprised you found that post, as most things I say on my blog go unnoticed by all save my friends (and flist).
The post in question was originally composed in a fit of annoyance at the number of spats that occur in the various fandoms between opinionated fans, not only because of how stubbornly they cling to their own beliefs and refuse to give any leeway to the opinions of others, but also because many of these spats could have been avoided if the writers had attempted to communicate their thoughts more clearly. A lot of these fandom wars are reported and mocked at a Journal Fen community called Fandom Wank . Thoughts about the immense popularity of Fandom Wank and of the frequency with which certain online communities get reported there led to thoughts about the pitfalls of communication online in general, which led to the post. Another thing that prompted the post was my personal experience with instant messaging through programs like AIM, where, if I don't know someone personally, it's slightly harder to establish some sort of connection, or rapport, with the person.

In my initial post which the_tower has read, I had written:

What most interests me in the_tower’s thoughts is the sense he gives of how the other person, or other people, are almost present. Online communication, blogging in particular, has the form of a conversation between two or more people, even if it is not, literally, a conversation. It is virtually (in the sense of 'almost' ) one. There is a desire for an immediate response, for the other’s, or others’, presence. Are you there?

the_tower didn't comment on this in his response but re-reading these sentences of mine now, it seems to me that they had little to do with what he had written, that I was simply interpreting his post to say what I happened to want to say, as interpreters often do.

I am less confident than I was a few weeks ago of the truth of what I said i.e. that online communication, blogging in particular, has the form of a conversation between two or more people, even if it is not, literally, a conversation. But I think it is fair to say that my posts on Bea (beginning with 'Advice from Beatrix Joyce (my niece)' have the form of a conversation. I doubt now whether there is, as I wrote

a desire [in blogging generally] for an immediate response, for the other’s, or others’, presence

But this is, I think, a good interpretation of my posts on Bea.

Interpretation is often self-understanding that does not know its name. I was not writing about the_tower's post at all but about myself.   

Has it ever struck you, as it often does me, how, when someone complains about someone else, the complaint is more true of the person complaining than it is of the person who is being complained about?   

I have just posted a comment on the_tower's blog: 
 
Dear the_tower (Do you, by the way, have a more common-or-garden name that you would be prepared to reveal to me?),
thanks for posting a comment on my blog, and sorry to have been so very slow to acknowledge it. I hope that you get that essay done today.
By way of response to your comment, I've posted something on my blog again. I don't know if you'll make head or tail of it. I risk disappearing up my own bottom. But I feel that, sometimes, you have to take risks where you hope that, later on, you will understand why you took them.
I've been making some gentle progress on my blog, though I still don't know how TrackBack works exactly! I've been posting mainly on my niece Bea, and trying to get her to start a blog. The purpose is to try to get my writing going again after finishing a doctorate. I went into a kind of writer's depression after it. What I'm noticing in my posts on Bea is that there is some gentle humour in them, and that is a good sign for my writing endeavours, however tentative they are for now. I am entertaining myself, which is a start.
I am going to post this message as part of the post that I have just finished (bar pasting this into it). I hope that is O.K..         
Best wishes and thanks again,
Conor
www.conorthoughts.net

Comments

[the_tower]

Hi Conor,

I feel it would be best now to set the record straight before the misunderstanding is carried further: I am not a 'he'. :)

Some thoughts I had regarding what you took away with you from my post: I suppose that in certain types of blogging, the blogger writes with the expectation that someone will answer. This is especially true of places like Livejournal, where users have the option of 'friending' other users and reading all their recent entries on the friends page. In places like this, you know that what you write will turn up on someone else's friends page, that your 'friends' will read them, and if they are interested, they will comment, so often anything that is written is written with self-consciousness, with the knowledge that what you write won't be for your eyes only. In this way blogging, even blogging for yourself, is quite different from writing in a diary that you keep hidden under your bed.

When I first began blogging, before moving to LJ, I blogged purely for myself. I knew that at least one person was keeping an eye on me, and that was the friend who introduced me to blogging, but otherwise, I was not writing for an audience. With the move to LJ and subsequent coming into contact with a few names I'd been familiar with onine, I began to write with more thought to an audience, changing how I wrote and what I wrote about in an effort to become more interesting and amusing. None of what I did, however, I would categorize as 'conversation'. I don't believe it is conversation unless the original post was meant to illicit comments and someone actually does reply. Until comments are exchanged, blogging remains a combination of bulletin, performance, and comfortable ranting space, at least for me. My interest in blogging has waned somewhat in recent years, and I find that I am back to blogging purely for my own sake. I enjoy blogging, not because of the audience out there, but because it's a wonderful form of stress relief as well as reflections of myself as I am now, should I choose to look back in the future.

Granted, there are times when I'm not satisfied with what I express in my blog, but overall I don't worry so much about whether my writing appeals to others or not. This may not help someone in your shoes, it is true, but taking a different perspective to writing might help you come out of your slump.