Thursday, October 29, 2015

What's the point?

Why don't you blog more often, Ben?

It's a good question: is it because I'm too busy? Is it because I'm too lazy? Is it because I forgot my password?

No...it's just because I get discouraged when I see other bloggers hit heights of analysis that I know I can't reach.

The fact is that when I blog, I want to reach for the stars. I want to climb to the top of the ladder. As a blogger I aspire to absolute excellence, and I can't help but wonder, what's the point, when I see a blog post like this one by Tim Blair.

Yes, that post, titled "Transitioning" (and the perfection of that title alone is enough to make this a great example to show students in a How to Blog Better class) is so good, so pithy, wise and comprehensive in its summary of contemporary societal challenges and the drawing together of the many disparate threads of community concern and political consciousness, that there just seems very little point in a neophyte blogger like me even trying to improve his work - no matter how good I get, I'll never be "Transitioning by Tim Blair good". To illustrate my point, I quote:

Clementine Ford appears to be growing a moustache.
 And that says it all, really, doesn't it?

Like Alexander, I weep - not because there are no more worlds to conquer, but because that which I sought to conquer belongs to another. Time, perhaps, to give up blogging and simply expend my energies on paying homage to the man who clearly is, was and will be ever more my master: Tim "Women With Moustaches" Blair.