Style vs. Substance

[tinuvial]

I don't post often enough. I want the posts I make here to have substance, to have meaning. I want to put myself out there, to be emotionally honest about the things that I struggle with. However, I also don't want to sound like a whiny child. I want to be positive and provide encouragement.

I started using the phrase "style vs. substance" the week that both Mother Theresa and Princess Diana died. Both of these women were inspirational to me, yet, if you compared their lives, Princess Diana embodied "Style" and Mother Theresa embodied "Substance." Which one got the most column inches in the news? Princess Diana of course. This bothered me, and opened my eyes most painfully to the fact that we, as a species, are attracted to style vs. substance. (This is not to say that Princess Diana was not a wonderful philanthropist, she was, but that was not what defined her life as it was for Mother Theresa).

I want to post, but I want to do more than just chronicle the mundane, trivial details of my life. This is not to say that I don't enjoy reading the mundane, trivial details of the lives of others (which may make me a hypocrite, but I can live with that). I just aspire to be more than, "My cat/kid/significant other did x/y/z today and it was so annoying/cute/funny." Perhaps I've set the bar too high for myself.

I find that I'm more likely to participate in memes on facebook, more likely to post trivia there. The medium just doesn't lend itself to serious blogging. My own blog site is empty, taunting me. It will happen in due time, I'm just not sure what that is.

As I begin to live a more Tao centered life, I question whether blogging at all is appropriate. Is it an ego-driven activity? Most of the time it appears to be, and it sustains my silence. Perhaps it is the nature of one-sided communication that makes it feel so much more egocentric. It feels like talking to myself in an empty room. If it's not ego-centered, then why enable comments at all? Being solicitous of responses definitely feels ego-driven. Yet, for the most part, that is often why I write.

I write to be heard, to be understood, yet not to be judged. I strive for substance over style. Hopefully, most times these days at least, I hit the mark.

Ciao for now.