What am I trying to do? Hm. While I do want a job, this isn't the blog I would be writing if I were writing the blog to try to get a job. (That one would be way less interesting to me, which probably means it would be less interesting to other people, too. Things seem to go like that.) Share my experiences is closer, I guess. Certainly in Zambia, it was a link to people back in the US, and to my SALT compatriots around the globe. And it still serves some function of keeping people I know abreast of what I'm up to, though that's less important than it used to be. And goodness knows that there are lots of things that happen to me that never make it on the blog (sometime we're hanging out in person, ask me about the other thing that happened on that trip to Mapanza . . .) Change the world . . . that seems a very large goal. Some of my initial shying-away from it may also have to do with the way women are socialized to not make waves or stick themselves out there . . . but that doesn't mean that there isn't some truth to the statement.
One purpose it certainly serves is personal: I process and transform my experiences by recounting them. It's one of the tools I use to get through appalling and horrifying situations: Just think was a great STORY this will be later! That storyfication, that narrative transformation, can also happen verbally, and sometimes it happens privately in letters, but the time and space of the blog makes it easier than verbal performance, and increased audience makes it more likely to actually happen.
If I were to put my goals into words, they would be: interest, amuse, and educate. I want people to enjoy reading my blog, and I want to make them think. I want to show my friends places and things they've never experienced, and perhaps prize open the worldview of some of my more close-minded relatives, if only a little. I want people to walk away from my entries asking themselves questions, or thinking about something in a slightly different way -- both people I know and random strangers.
One of the central tenets of MCC's work is relationship-based: that the people you meet, the things you learn, the relationships you form are, in the grand scheme of things, probably much more important than any actual work you do. We live in a global world, but we're very good at closing ourselves into boxes and running in our same old hamster wheels. I want to open up windows -- to strangers, to new ideas, to moments of wonder.
I guess I am trying to change the world, at least a little.
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branchandroot
no subject
Date: 14 Dec 2013 09:42 pm (UTC)What am I trying to do? Hm.
While I do want a job, this isn't the blog I would be writing if I were writing the blog to try to get a job. (That one would be way less interesting to me, which probably means it would be less interesting to other people, too. Things seem to go like that.)
Share my experiences is closer, I guess. Certainly in Zambia, it was a link to people back in the US, and to my SALT compatriots around the globe. And it still serves some function of keeping people I know abreast of what I'm up to, though that's less important than it used to be. And goodness knows that there are lots of things that happen to me that never make it on the blog (sometime we're hanging out in person, ask me about the other thing that happened on that trip to Mapanza . . .)
Change the world . . . that seems a very large goal. Some of my initial shying-away from it may also have to do with the way women are socialized to not make waves or stick themselves out there . . . but that doesn't mean that there isn't some truth to the statement.
One purpose it certainly serves is personal: I process and transform my experiences by recounting them. It's one of the tools I use to get through appalling and horrifying situations: Just think was a great STORY this will be later! That storyfication, that narrative transformation, can also happen verbally, and sometimes it happens privately in letters, but the time and space of the blog makes it easier than verbal performance, and increased audience makes it more likely to actually happen.
If I were to put my goals into words, they would be: interest, amuse, and educate. I want people to enjoy reading my blog, and I want to make them think. I want to show my friends places and things they've never experienced, and perhaps prize open the worldview of some of my more close-minded relatives, if only a little. I want people to walk away from my entries asking themselves questions, or thinking about something in a slightly different way -- both people I know and random strangers.
One of the central tenets of MCC's work is relationship-based: that the people you meet, the things you learn, the relationships you form are, in the grand scheme of things, probably much more important than any actual work you do. We live in a global world, but we're very good at closing ourselves into boxes and running in our same old hamster wheels. I want to open up windows -- to strangers, to new ideas, to moments of wonder.
I guess I am trying to change the world, at least a little.