Tale of a (Slowly Reforming) Luddite
I have a confession to make. Shh, come closer, my pet; let me whisper it in your ear, for it is mildly embarrassing.
I’m a wee bit of a Luddite. As in, resistant to technological progress. Or most kinds of progress.
There’s no denying I’m always late to the party when it comes to, oh, everything. I jumped on the Alternative music bandwagon just after Kurt Cobain’s suicide (although to be fair I was only eleven when he died). I stubbornly hand wrote my papers through high school, even though we had a computer and typing would have been so much quicker than forcing out my Palmer-method script. I didn’t get a cell phone until I was nineteen, and even then only because it was free if my parents put me on the family plan and what else were they going to do with a fourth phone if they didn’t force me to use it? I refused to wear skinny jeans with my boots until my faux pas became reason for severe chagrin. I hung onto MySpace way too long after Facebook became the social media outlet of choice among my peers. I just started watching Mad Men a few months back. I still refuse to wear fluorescent ANYTHING, despite it being the hip thing to do.
Sorry pre-pubescent girls, fluorescents belong solely in eighties, along with shoulder pads and General Public.
I am never on the cutting edge of anything.
So needless to say, I came to the world of blogging late in life. As in, this year. More specifically, March of this year, when I started reading The Bloggess. I’d peruse The Art of Non-Conformity occasionally in the years preceding to help bolster my rejection of the cubicle life style, but no more frequently than during the odd bout of dissatisfaction with life coupled with ambition to do something better. And I never left a comment.
When I used to tell people I wanted to be a writer, they would always suggest “Natti, you should start a blog!” I’d shrug them off, like I was superior to that whole movement.
“Oh yeah, that. The whole blog thing is just a fad, it’ll die out. I want to write novels. Real writers write novels, or short stories, or collections of erotic poetry.”
Mostly I didn’t know what I was talking about.
My point is, for some reason I have a “make do or do without” mentality toward technology and other new-fangled ideas, like Bluetooth or Cable Television – boy, will I be relieved when that fad finally dies out. We’ve lived this long without up-to-the-minute access to Showtime, we’ll survive without it, I think stubbornly to myself.
You’d think I grew up in Depression-era Nebraska.
Anyway, I am always convinced we can live without “it,” whatever “it” may be…that is, until I get a taste of life with “it.” When I finally got the memo that nobody really succeeded as a writer without an online presence unless they were Herman Wouk, I realized I needed to suck it up and at least look into the whole blogging phenomenon.
And now? Totally cannot picture my life without this little treasured space where my blog lives. It is my infant love, which brings joy to my heart and causes sleepless nights, much like a real infant, only with less pooping.
[Leaving myself wide open for “but your blog sure is full of shit!” comments. Beat you to it, guys.]
So my experience with blogging came around the same way I came around to the side of the smart phone last year. How did I ever manage without one?
The next time I resist a really brilliant technological advance, call me on it by reminding me how much happiness and fulfillment my blog has provided.
Unless you’re trying to talk me into getting cable. Sorry, my friends, you’re fighting a losing battle with that one.
15 Comments
Jake
1. If your blog isn’t full of shit at least a respectable percentage of the time, you’re doing it wrong.
2. Real writers write. The end. It doesn’t matter where they do it. And, if you’re writing online, it’s a hell of a lot easier for people to access.
3. I infer from this that you’ve also never owned a puffy vest monstrosity. This is called integrity, my friend. You win. 😉
Natalie the Singingfool
Actually no, I have never owned a puffy vest – why would anyone want to wear something to make them look more “puffy?”
And your previous points are all well taken. Number 2 is what I tell myself all the time when people ask what I want to be when/if I ever grow up, and I tell them I’m already doing it. I just don’t get paid for doing it…
Jennifer Gunther
I like hearing your experience and I like puffy vests, even though I don’t own one either. Where I’m sitting, it seems like they both fit.
Just wanted to say hey, I’m out here.
Natalie the Singingfool
Hello. *Waves*
Erica Schatz
BluRay on an HD television is amazing!! …and costly, but keep in mind the happiness and fulfillment! You haven’t lived until you’ve seen Lord of the Rings on BluRay!
Natalie the Singingfool
We DO have a BluRay player, but we only bought it as a tool from which to watch Netflix on demand. I have yet to watch LOTR on it thought, because my LOTR movies are all on…wait for it…
VHS!!!
Erica Schatz
hahaha! That’s great. That’s. Just. Great. 🙂
Lindsey
And the world is so glad you did jump on the blogging bandwagon, my dear. Your voice adds something worth stopping by to read.
I can’t think of anything technologically advanced to recommend, since I still have a dumbphone, myself.
Natalie the Singingfool
See, I knew we were secret sisters!
Winopants
So the same.. late to facebook, late to blogging. I still don’t have an iphone (but at least it’s a touchscreen). I think it’s called “being over 25” 🙂
Natalie the Singingfool
Does this mean I’m officially old?????
Tamara
Well, I have satellite TV and a smartphone. And I love Facebook. I have even dabbled with Twitter, though I am quickly becoming bored with it (I read somewhere that if you blog you HAVE to tweet. Not sure why really, I get more readers by fb and NaBloPoMo)
I just started blogging in August myself. I never thought of myself as a writer, never had the drive to share like this. Until now. And now that I started I am not sure how to stop! LOL!
So see, you aren’t the last one to the party, and I bet I’m not either! 🙂
Natalie the Singingfool
You are WAAAAYYY ahead of me! Satellite? At least we know we aren’t last to the party on the blogging…
Spugnacious
Who said your blog was shit? I like your blog! Point me in their general direction and I will punch them. Unless they are bigger than I am, in which case I will give them a dirty look. When they are not looking.
But if they are smaller than I am…. they’re totally gettin punched. Unless they are a lot smaller than I am. Or female. If that’s the case I’m falling back on my dirty look plan.
Natalie the Singingfool
I’m just *assuming* someone will say it. But I appreciate the threat of violence! You’re now hired as my bodyguard.