Friday, August 2, 2013

Liftoff

Up goes the landing gear, and across the ocean flies the Boeing 777 . . .


Mechanic flight aside, let me explain my title.  Every once in a while, a human being will use the phrase, "for the record," usually followed by a statement of self-promotion or otherwise noteworthy something that whoever is listening likely didn't know.  Examples: "For the record, I scored the winning goal."  "For the record, I knew you were going to react that way when I told you."  "For the record, he gave us the assignment three weeks ago."

Now, the interesting part of the phrase is that it is not only followed by a statement.  Often there is either a spoken or an implied "therefore" following the statement.  "I scored the winning goal (therefore I get the credit, not my teammate)."  "I knew you were going to react that way when I told you (therefore your reactions are pretty predictable and I know you pretty well)."  "He gave us the assignment three weeks ago, therefore we had no reason to blame him for our poor grade."

Do you sense the pattern here?  In all of these examples, at least, the "therefore" applies the "for the record" directly to the person who is saying, "for the record."  And what is the record, anyway?  My best guess:  Memory.  Specific people's memory, definitely.  Primarily the memory of the person speaking the phrase, secondarily whomever they are speaking to.  So the funny thing, I think, is this: there is no record at all.  There is only an abundance of recordERs (anyone with the ability to remember (basically, humans. Although there are a few exceptions I suppose)).  So when someone says, "for the record," my best conclusion is that what they really mean to say is, "for those who want to remember."

This blog is a record.  I admit this and embrace it.  "Published" means out there for people to read, and those people are not really in my control.  "Saved" means it has been recorded and it's not going away.  I will write anything and everything that I write with such knowledge.  This blog records, remembers for me.

But more importantly, this blog is for me.  For my remembering.  I want to say things that I think, but often I don't, and very often I think things that I don't want to say - so I write.  And then it will end up here.  This blog is for me.  To spit fire, to breathe ice.  To learn myself, inside-out and upside-down, and then remake myself, inside-in and upside-up, via an amazing little thing called introversion.  Writing and introversion often go hand-in-hand.

But that's beside the point.

The point is, I'm writing so that what I believe can be organized into words, what I feel can be vomited into rants, what I know can be jotted into lists, what I think can be transformed into coherency.  Well - near coherency, at least.  This blog is, by all means, here to entertain you.  But don't think for a second that its about you, what you agree or disagree with, or what you do and don't think I should be saying.  I'm anything but politically correct.

But it's really not about me, either.  That's the irony of it.

It's about remembering.

This blog, in my opinion, is a vessel for remembering.  And that is all that matters.

Like I said, welcome.  And good luck.



Note:  Material that is written and published on this blog is all written by me, unless I say differently.  Therefore you must understand that everything I publish is UN-edited unless I say differently as well, because I don't share this stuff before I publish it.  Everything has been read over anywhere from 2 to 10 times, possibly only as it was being written.  Incompleteness or discrepancies, or even just typos, can be expected and accepted.  For the record.  NOT for 10/10s in quality.  Thanks for taking that into account.

No comments:

Post a Comment