It occurs to me that blogging is an inherently selfish thing. Or, perhaps that is unfair. As I am new at this, my experience is very limited; and so I should rephrase it to say that so far, my blogging has been an inherently selfish thing. I should add to that I also find it quite narcissistic. After all, I'm writing about me--expressing my thoughts and (here it comes) my feelings. Am I somehow also assuming there are people out there who cannot live a complete day without knowing what I think? To that I must openly and honestly say back to myself: Hahahahaha, etc.!
So I find myself reflecting on this rather new phenomenon provided by the Internet. It has been a lifelong dream of mine to write a book, or at least a published essay (narcissistic in itself, of course) and now, here, anyone who owns a computer and can find a way to ride the virtual highway is able to post anything at anytime. Can that individual now say to the world "I am published"? And if so, does that somehow devalue those hard working scholars, novelists and essayists who work late into the night, scribbling, crossing out, editing and rewriting, in hopes of one day producing a tangible hardcover item with their name displayed proudly on the front? Do we even bother to buy books or journals anymore, since we can mostly hop online and read everybody and anybody's opinions about every subject imaginable?
Perhaps this poses a bigger question. Does the fact that we now have access to the opinions of almost the entire world population somehow make it impossible for the ordinary person to discern what is, in fact, the Truth? Is it necessarily a good thing that I can Google the topic: "is the world going to end in 2012" and find something like 64,102,000 results in .42 seconds? And so then I ask myself, if it was possible in this lifetime to read all of those posts, which one would I believe???
I can fall back on my fabulous Catholic education, and my good public education before that, measuring and weighing what I learned from great books and great teachers against countless Internet postings. But now, in this millenium, isn't it a vicious circle? Which high school, college or university does not have computer labs with Internet connections? What student has written a paper without consulting the Internet, and without pulling up his topic on the almighty Wikiepedia? I wonder, does the Internet enhance research and lead us all closer to Truth, or does it just muddy the waters, so to speak. Is it true that, in order to come to a conclusion about what is True, one must study and listen to every angle and opinion on that matter? This is an especially relevant question to me here, at the University of Notre Dame, after having recently discovered that certain faculty members believe the definition of "academic freedom" to be that they are able teach their own opinions to students as if it were gospel, regardless of whether it is grounded in AbsoluteTruth (a concept, I'm afraid, some faculty don't subscribe to in the first place.)
Well, I don't have the answers. I'm sure that many people do have the answers and if I Googled the question, I would find millions of pages on the topic. But, just for now, I'm not going to bother. I'm too busy engaging in my own selfish and narcissistic pursuits.
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