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AHEAD_AND_BEHIND


                                             September 16, 2013


Looking over "the doomfiles" project, and comparing
it to other things that have appeared over the net
in the intervening years, it's interesting how much
I anticipated...

The unrestricted range of subject matter, veering
between personal, political, art and literature.

Many of the posts are very heavy on quotation,
with only small amounts of original commentary;
a format popular in the early "blogosphere".          I've never succeeded
                                                      in inventing any
   I lead off with what amounts to                    terminology quite as
   an "under construction" message                    stupid and ugly as
   (an early fad that's thankfully died):             "blogosphere", though.

                                         TOP               (I'm better at
                                                           pretentious than
                                                           silly.)
On thing that remains unique with the doomfiles
is the graphical layout of chunks of text
(and fixed width text at that... but that's
just a technical limitation of the way I've
done it thus far-- html PRE tags-- I wouldn't
call that a requirement).

    The early nodes-- to use doomfiles
    terminology, rather than the web's "pages"--
    have more explication of basic information,
    which I think was also the case of early         The fact that wikipedia
    web pages... that's something that's fallen      does a "good enough"
    off with the success of wikipedia.               job of recording and
                                                     displaying basic
                                                     information is both
                                                     very useful and yet
                                                     also something of a
                                                     trap: if we're not
                                                     writing things when we
                                                     feel we're in wikipedia
          Still, I put in a fair amount              territory, we're
          of work *explaining myself*,               surrendering quite a
          trying to get across ideas                 lot...
          that in retrospect (and perhaps
          not only in retrospect) seem
          rather obvious.

              When I realize that someone else
              out there is saying something
              much like what I've been trying
              to say-- well that used to seem
              disapointing, but I've long
              since gotten used to it-- it
              does, however make me wonder why
              I'm bothering to pin things down
              many other people will get (or
              maybe have gotten already).

              Laboriously working through your ideas for
              an essentially non-existant audience is
              crazy enough, but doing it when you never
              seem to push beyond the range of what
              everyone else can do, that seems pretty
              useless.


                        I wonder if I may be
                        holding myself back
                        on some level with
                        this explication for
                        an imaginary audience.

                        If you worry a lot about addressing the
                        current state of knowledge and opinion,
                        you may unconsciously restrict yourself
                        to it.

                             In a way, it would be better if I
                             were more egocentric: typically, my
                             imaginary audience is someone who
                             came in in the middle who hasn't
                             heard a single thing I've said
                             over the last several decades.

                             Everything I write begins anew,
                             and starts again from zero.


                                                   An old thought with me:
                                                   invent an imaginary
                                                   character to talk to.

                                                              METHOD

                                                   What would happen if
                                                   I invented a fan that
                                                   dotes on every word,
                                                   and doesn't need to
                                                   be filled in on anything...


         My current "push" is almost the
         opposite: I'm finishing up
         more-or-less readable material that
         has been sitting around for years;
         and often it was left waiting
         because I thought it was all too
         redundant, too similar to stuff
         I've said already.




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