Post 101 - or, what scares me about the internet.

Remember my 50th post, where I talked briefly about what brought me back to blogging?

Well now I've reached Post 101, and have decided it seems apt to go in the other direction, and briefly discuss what draws me away from the internet.

The answer can actually be found way back in the first post I ever created here, although I also hint at the element of optimist I talked about last time: narcissism. Why would anyone want to read what I think about stuff? Why would I want to send it out into the ether of the internet when I have a perfectly good private, handwritten journal - and have been keeping one for over a decade, for that matter? This is something I still question on a regular basis, and as my first post suggests, I have opted for using this as a space to collect and showcase things that inspire me. I mentioned in another, maybe more personal, post about memorials in Cape Town a different reason for keeping up this blog - as a space simply for aesthetics, and for the apparently superficial (at least, in opposition to my studies).

Still, this phenomenon of "oversharing" is something that irks me - and I feel its unique to our generation. This is illustrated most prominently in that notorious vortex of time wasting, facebook - which isn't all bad, but I'm generally at least very ambivalent towards it. My social media antipathy is a whole other story... So I'll keep my promise and keep it brief.

(Small aside - my compulsion to keep things brief is something that irks me about the internet as I feel it's contributed to the current culture of short attention spans).

Why do we feel compelled to keep projecting our lives onto computer screens? And is it always healthy? I don't have conclusive answers to these questions. Like last time I'll close with a song (with a hint of irony) and return to my enormous amounts of work.

The Damned - Strawberries - I Think I'm Wonderful