Peaceful Obscurity

I decided to Google my blog this afternoon. I suppose the pressure of web life goes to your head sometimes. Anyway, to my horror, I found that the search terms "Crystal Enlightenment" bring up a few thousand sites about the joys and phenomenal healing powers of crystals. Pah. Thus, after some half-hearted clicks over to the following pages, I accepted my own macro-obscurity.

Then, as I was filling in the list of my favourite movies, I had an idea for a cartoon (the type of epiphany I most enjoy): Silence of the Lamps. So I Googled this as well, due to the nagging feeling that someone else had already thought of it. Clicky. Bingo, mocumentary on Youtube. Short but reasonably thoughtful and quirky. Alas, I crossed it out.

So I finished updating my profile and went to see the final effect. A small annotation informed me that my page had been viewed a grand total of 4 times. This sense of peace crept in and I realised I actually didn't care that my one blog entry, insightful as it may be (note: sarcasm), has no real impact upon Internetland and its merryfolk other than the space it takes up. I changed some stuff, saved it, returned to my profile to see that the view count was now at 11. The following represents the relationship between my obscurity and feeling of peace.

I don't necessarily believe that the more people who view my blogs the less peaceful I will feel, or I wouldn't bother. Nor do I favour one above the other. But I do think there is a certain serenity to communicating one's ideas, exposing them to scrutiny after which they still remain unseen.

The beginning

So, I've started a blog that will generally comprise of any thoughts or blitherings that I consider worthy of the Internet. It will most likely be forgotten or become tiresome like many of my other web projects, such as a very dusty myspace page or hotmail login name that has lost the humorous ring it possessed a few years ago. Although it may help stabilise my slight problem with journals, where I get several pages into one and then start another because the 'mood' has changed.

It is titled Crystal Enlightenment because a) that is my name and b) that's what I've been trying to do lately. When life starts to feel a bit strange - perhaps the sort of strange that dogs feel when their owners dress them up in little costumes - I try to sit down and reflect. I am very good at this, however it often leaves me feeling ridiculously confused with thoughts floating around like children in a candy store; I do so enjoy musing and I hate losing an idea in the chaos, but it's hard to know where to start in order to make sense of it all. I guess I'm a philosopher that loses the plot sometimes.

I experience both relief and a need for critical evaluation when I manage to get my thoughts out into the world. It's like teaching myself by learning or relaxing by stressing out. I don't really understand it, but at the same time I don't entirely want to. It gets to the point where my thoughts feel thick and heavy like mud and I just stop and wait for them to creep back to me at another time.

In summary, despite how much I analyse and filter my inner musings, what I end up with, this expression of thought and feeling, is probably the purest form of 'me' there is outside the protective barrier that is my skull. And so, knowing this, I now try to use them to both understand myself better and to maybe allow others to get a glimpse of what goes on in here. The important things at any rate. By doing so I hope to become enlightened.

Thinking to understand thinking: philosophy at its greatest. I love it.