Why Bloggers Blog: Part Five-B

To Enjoy a "Sense of Neighborhood"

Thank you for participating in this discussion. It has been a very enjoyable and thought-provoking process.

My boyhood neighborhood was kid-friendly, suburban, white, Italian/Polish/other (we were other), mostly catholic (we were not), Democrat (we were not), blue collar (my dad was not), lower-middle-aged / lower-middle class (we were lower than most). As a kid, however, I didn’t think in such terms. I only knew it was a wonderful place to grow up. As an adult I fondly described it like this:

“From our front porch we could see scores of nearly identical small, three-bedroom brick ranches, and beyond them were hundreds more, packed into ….a suburban grid of tightly-woven streets and patch-pocket yards with about twelve feet between the houses.… When I say ‘tightly-woven,’ I mean ‘close-knit’ without the comfortable give.”

“Neighborhood” can be an attitude rather than a maze of streets and homes, a place where all the demographics and adjectives are as unimportant as they are to a child.

Blogging creates that sense of neighborhood from Seattle to Savannah, Malaysia to Michigan, Oklahoma to Ontario, India to Indiana. It boggles my mind that this is possible. I may never fully understand how the technology works, but the sociology is not that different from real life.

The metaphor I most often use for blogging is a conversational gathering on a front porch in the kind of “neighborhood” we’ve all described. Front porches are an open, inclusive, transitional place between the neighborhood and the home itself (without actually opening the home).

Some bloggers do “open their home.” They may prefer a kitchen metaphor, because they focus on recipes; to some it’s a family room, and they scrap and talk about kids ; to some it’s the garden or a work shop or garage. A blog is a place that reflects our interests, perspectives, and how far into “our world” we’re comfortable allowing strangers.

Whoa! Wait a minute, Tom. Strangers? I was with you until you said "strangers." You just described this neighborly place we all enjoy to visit. We’re not strangers. Lots of us have become friends with people in this neighborhood.

I understand that, and I sense and value that camaraderie, too. It's been a unaticipated reward of blogging. But before you read on, please try something with me. Don’t click these links yet. You must first agree to insert the word “nobody” for the word “everybody” each time the song says it. Okay? Now click this link and listen to the theme song from Cheers. (Or if you’d rather watch the video clip of the same song, click here.) Remember, insert “nobody” each time you hear “everybody.”

"Thanks, Tom, for completely ruining the song!" I like it better the other way, too. The lyrics suggest we all long for a place to make new acquaintances, feel accepted, etc..... a place to be “known”... but only so well. But don't you agree that sometimes we want to go where we can enjoy some friendly anonymity and selective vulnerability? It is in that sense that this is a neighborhood of "strangers." Being the right kind of "strangers" is not a bad thing. Remember, the two men in the previous post were perfect strangers.

Based on our use of first names only (or knick names) and our brief “profiles,” we've all wisely chosen to control how little or how much we actually share of ourselves with the world.

You are all interesting writers with thoughts worthy to be shared in an open forum. For all the reasons mentioned in this discussion, I value the insights and perspectives in this neighborhood in spite of the inherent limitations of the internet.

Speaking only for myself, I feel more free to write here with some level of plausible deniability. =) I'm a school administrator. Can you imagine me being in the middle of some school discipline matter and having a kid say, "I'll make a deal with you Mr. K.: You throw out the detention and I'll promise not to tell anybody you wrote about a "drool stained pillow." I can simply say, "'Patterns of What?' Never heard of it, and don't ask me how that picture of George Lukas holding my daughter got on that site."

Some of my school clientele read here, we talk about it, but the vast majority of people who know me have no idea these pages exist, and I'm totally okay with that. Even though that's true, I still have a rule of thumb: If I wouldn't say it out loud at work, the mall, or church, I should think twice about writing it on my blog. We must live with our words. Choose wisely.

Likewise, on a more serious note: since none of our blogs are “closed,” we must remember that there are unsavory strangers and sultry alleys just a mouse click away. (A stranger helped a stranger in “The Good Samaritan,” but it was also “strangers” who robbed the man in the first place.) In the same sense that parents should be very careful about kids spending too much time at MySpace, adults must be careful with this personal pastime we call blogging.

The second reason we need to be careful with this "neighborhood" pastime is one I’m not sure we want to hear.... I've been putting it off in this discussion. Here's a clue: the word “pastime” implies the passing of time. We’ve all shared reasons why the dimension of blogging is part of our lives, but read through the comments and you’ll hear many bloggers candidly talking of it in terms of addiction. I know they may be joking, but there's some truth to it.

I confess that the weekend “writing time” I mention in my header has of late become an evening “pastime,” too. Take now for instance: It is 11:35 PM Thursday. At the moment, I'm in my recliner "waiting up" for one of my daughters. It is the amount of time I'm gladly giving this pastime that prompted the last post of this series.

Part VI is some advice (mostly to myself) given in a somewhat humorous light. I'm mulling over a few concerns and suggestions I need to consider as I strive to strike a manageable balance between a pastime and the reality of passing time with those we love and serve in our home, neighborhoods, communities, and world around us. We have some family activities this weekend, but I'm hoping to post it by Sunday night.

My daughter just got home--right when she said. I love hearing about her day. (Next week, maybe I'll tell you about her first "warning" for a traffic violation.) Allow me to close with this post's theme and the story behind the song. =)
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Tom