This is my very first post, so the helpful link in WordPress tells me, and I’ll take its word for it.
I’ve been planning to start a blog for some time now, but I’ve been hesitant to join the ranks of the blogosphere for fear of becoming yet another hipster lost in the sea of precious snowflake opinion that our internet has become. Everyone has something to yell about these days, and I’m no exception. We all want to be heard, but our voices, whether speaking words of worth or merely screaming into the white-noise of everyone else’s screaming, are lost in the mix.
Yes, I want to be heard too, so I may as well start bellowing my own snowflake opinion along with everyone else in the hope that one or two people might hear it and even, wildly, agree with me or disagree sufficiently to warrant a comment that’ll feed my egomania and reinforce my status as “special”. Well, as special as everyone else, right?
Yeah, right.
I’m liking the default images that WordPress setup for a new blog; a nice blurry view of an unidentified city by night. It’s like I’m pissed up, or lost my glasses, or have taken a solid blow to the head shortly before being robbed by some unfortunate soul forced to turn to a life of larceny.
It could also be representative of how the real world is distorted for us by our personal view of things. A view often manipulated by others so that it appears colourful and identifiable, attractive even, but remains beyond our ability to sharpen and make discernable the details that underlie the truth of the picture.
Of course, that’d be pretentious and arty as fuck and we’re not going there.
Not today, pretention, not today.
You’re probably getting the idea of the blog by now. Yep, another social commentator trying to convince everyone that HE has the “Right Idea” and has “The Answer”. Now, I know I don’t have all the answers, but I do have a LOT of questions. I’m also going to speculate. Endlessly.
Over the last couple of decades I’ve been a regular poster and participant in various forums and sites around the web, and I’ve found that some people like what I have to say, some rage at every word I post and some ask questions that make me stop, think and reconsider my stance. Of course, some people have called me a “conspiracy theorist” or “politically naïve” over the years too, but I’ve found that this is often a substitute for being unable, or unwilling, to answer the questions I put forward.
So, who am I? Well, for reasons that will hopefully become apparent as I make future posts, I’m going to avoid personally identifying myself IRL and I’m going to go by my usual moniker of Bernard Marx Orwell as a non de plume, mainly because that’s the name I post under elsewhere. As for other details, I’m white, male, middle aged, highly tech-savvy and opinionated. I like to think of myself as educated, both formally and self taught, and I like to believe I take a critical, skeptical view of the world around me. I consider myself to be left of centre politically, but also radical, reformist and reactionary in my approach; I’m not afraid to be blunt and I like to go to the heart of a problem when seeking a solution. Leftist I may be, but a politically correct, bleeding heart liberal? No, probably not these days. I’m too f’in angry about shit for that.
Exploring the truth(iness) of that is what I hope this blog will be all about. I’m going to rabbit and rant about the things that piss me off and throw my ruminations around for all to see, trample on, pick up and discard as they see fit.
I’m going to test my ideas in the echoing, screaming chamber of the interwebs. If you choose to read it, or (heaven forfend) follow it, then be prepared to be exasperated as much as inspired, if not more so. I am going to piss you off, either from my utter ignorance of the subject at hand, or from my radical, unaligned approach to the issues of the day.
Consider yourselves warned.
Banzai!
~ Bernard Marx Orwell
I.M.O. 