What better way to start the new year than with a fresh, gooey Blab? Of course, if that had only been the case all the other years I didn't make one. Never mind that now, though.

So what is it I have to Blab about now? Well, first some "technical" stuff about Blabbing itself. As I may have mentioned before, some of the problems I have had with Blabs and writing them (or not writing them, rather) has been with both form and content. Taking form first, the problem there is that the form and style of a Blab conflicts somewhat with my own expectations of writings, whatever they may be, which inevitably have been shaped throughout the years by, among other, attending university and generally observing what other people do when writing. There are so many conventions within "official non-fiction writing" (fiction, as well) that I couldn't help but feel that I was producing junk, or some bastard, hybrid form of something. I felt, that Blabs were perhaps a bit of a cheap shot, a not-so-clever way for me to get around my own deficiencies in writing.

Well, I came to a conclusion about all this: Who cares? I want to focus on content here, and let my creativity flow more or less freely. Perhaps the other forms I'm lamenting about aren't as restrictive and annoying as I think they are, but it feels that way to me, and it is stifling me.

Then what about content? Well, I started to get ideas about what Blabs should be about and not, and what I could allow myself to write about, all the while I started to run out of things to Blab about.

Not to worry, though. I have just about Blabbed enough about my Blabber's block for now. Although, this will not necessarily mean there will be more Blabs in the future. I have been spending most of my writing time (which isn't really that much) writing other stuff.

Some new things have started to crop up, however, as they tend to do. My brain hasn't been standing still in these past years, that's for sure. I think one just tends to run into periods of lower activity through life. A lot of issues become settled, and you run out of things to say about them, unless you like repeating yourself. I don't, and I never did. If I do repeat myself, it is usually because I have forgotten what I had said or written previously, or if I return to revise or reiterate some things for a specific reason.

One of the things I was thinking about was the power of the written word, or rather, the power of one-way communication from an authority of some sort. That is to say, something that is being communicated to an audience of some or other size by a more or less impersonal author, a word obviously related to "authority". Sure, the audience can criticize and comment on someone's book, movie, article, song, poem, whatever, but the text, as we will call all those by a common word, is already out there, and in most case there isn't a damn thing you can do about it. And so, this statement or opinion communicated in this text is set in stone, to some extent, and whoever wrote it is going to be considered an actual authority and perhaps even a source, for either actual or literal reference of some sort. In other words, it is power, which perhaps is what appeals to me with all this writing, I don't know. But it also annoys me. The fact that just about anyone can just regurgitate something, and it will stand there, unchanged and forever exuding its opinions, right or wrong, however that can be judged, really bothers me. It bothers me because I know, as you probably also know, that someone is bound to come by and believe every single word, without hesitation or second thought. They will not relate to it critically, and they will henceforth have a more or less concrete reference to this text within their head, upon which they will adamantly claim this or that, and they might even forget themselves where they even know it from.

Just think about yourself for a minute. You probably have a fairly large body of knowledge, and it is probably quite complex, too. But where exactly do you have that knowledge from? School, TV and ones parents is probably what most would say first. Those could be said to be bad enough as is, in terms of being inaccurate and biased sources. But think again for a bit, and see if you can't find various other sources, most of which can't exactly be said to be reliable. And the problem with a lot of this stuff is that you just accept something as the truth, and then build upon that. Then you have moved up a level, sort of, and with your new level of knowledge, you start to base your opinions and very attitude to life on what you have on this level. From there on, you move up again, form further opinions, based on old ones that you don't even know are actually true.

The way I'm describing this makes it all sound very clear cut, but as with almost everything in life, it isn't. Even the seemingly simple distinction between true and false is in most cases muddled up by the many contrasts of life.

So where does all this leave us? I feel it leaves us in a world filled with people who probably think they know how things really are, at least to some extent. This obviously leads to many conflicts. But then, I don't want to not be allowed to express myself about something, just because I'm not an expert on that particular area. (Also, those aforementioned experts in the various areas should, in my opinion, be much better at making short and simple.)

We wouldn't even be able to fully agree on things, even if we make a panel of experts that could decide what the actual truth was or not. The panel itself would most likely have problems, too.

But so, we don't all get along. We know that, and have for years, so what? Well, the thing that really bothers me with this is not so much the inability to truly know something, but rather the fact that many people often think they know the truth, and everyone else is wrong. That lack of introspection, pausing to think where the knowledge is from and whether it could actually be false or just slightly misinterpreted, the pride and arrogance behind it, and the lack of humility, that is what bothers me. These are the things that essentially fuel the conflicts, together with misunderstandings, which are often based on wrong assumptions about the respective bases of knowledge and sources.

We see today how people can create almost any truth, and have the sources to back it up. We can create almost any truth now, just by picking the sources we want. I have seen a discussion where the involved parties were Googling up sources that suited them on the fly! But well, politicians have been doing that for years. It's all about finding the sources that support your already formed opinion, while we question or totally dismiss sources that don't suit us as being biased, faulty or even subversive conspiracies and deliberate lies.

And that's the problem. That way, we will never really form new opinions, just alterations and modifications of what we already have.

But so, what can we do about it? Which solution do I propose here in my conclusion? Well, this is a Blab and I'm not necessarily supposed to give a solution, or a conclusion for that matter, but I do wish people will think about this.

Gnug215