I discovered that I enjoy breaking rules in the late evening blogtime. That's probably why so many other people do, too.

Had a strange lunch experience today. Went to the "McCallister's Deli" place to purchase a sandwich. Looked over the attractive wall menu that looks like colored chalk on a blackboard, and of course that got me thinking about my blog. At about this time, I notice that pride of place, front and center are the special menu items, the first of which was:

The Patriot

Y'know, they tell us that we can contribute to the war effort by avoiding marijuana and SUVs, but that's not going over real well with the electorate. We can do our part in the sandwich selection department? Now you're talkin'.

ForeverQuest

I wish I could see every Google search being made around the world right now. Since I can't do that, I'll settle for the referral list...Ah, here's two:

63. self-bondage + "too far"
87. soccer moms gone wild

Irksome

Noticed a story in my local paper about the rapper 50 Cent. The article had a paragraph that started like this:

50 Cent had to...

Logos Dei

Did you see that the cable channel TNN announced that as of June 16, they will henceforth be known as Spike? That's not the name of a station, that's what you call a bulldog.

"We just like the idea of having a guy's name," said Albie Hecht, network president. "We thought that was smart and fun and irreverent."

Things I've Learned About Life, Dept.

Show, don't tell.

9:56:05 PM       

Inspiration. You want to write something original and interesting, but you've discussed everything you ever thought you'd want to say in your first month of Weblogging. So what did you do? You talked about your referral list, what you've been eating, your pets, sex, the war. Now it's getting a bit tougher.

From the Latin inspirare, the idea of inspiration hews closely to its etymology—to "breathe in," and we tend to treat it that way, like it's something outside of ourselves. We talk about it that way, too, with such phrases as "going out in search of inspiration," "finding inspiration," as if we're a bunch of addled crows flapping over a landscape of shiny baubles.

That metaphor survives because it works often enough to keep it alive. But it misses the causative element: inspiration is the synthesization of every experience you've ever had. As the Zen koan has it:

If you meet the Buddha on the road, kill him.

One of the best professors I've ever had the privilege of studying with required essay topics to be approved in advance. Barbara would begin each sit-down session in her office by asking the question, "So what?" She wanted to know why this topic was important, and what its exploration would mean in the overall scheme of things. Following this approach would weed out a lot of the poor writing I see on the Internet.

A related thought worth mentioning comes from an essay by Paul Graham, titled The Hundred-Year Language. In this stimulating discussion, Graham presents an analysis of what a computer language might look like a hundred years from now. Here's how he answers the "so what" problem:

This is worth thinking about not so much because we'll actually get to use these languages as because, if we're lucky, we'll use languages on the path from this point to that.

Of course, the world rarely moves to your schedule, and sometimes you really do need to jump-start the process a bit.

Go small: Focusing on the minute prevents your topic from overwhelming you. Instead of laying out your analysis of U.S. foreign policy, talk about a single issue. Narrow it down to a specific person. If it's Muhammed Saeed al-Sahaf, talk about his beret.

Environment: It might be hard to change your mindset, but you can easily change your physical space. Blog outside if you have a laptop, or try standing up while you type. Leave the house for awhile.

Use the Dead: Looking over the ideas of poets and philosophers puts you in touch with people who were, at the time of their writing, deeply inspired.

Back Up: We often get stuck on the particular, and a walk in the garden, a stroll through the park, or looking up at the night sky can put things in perspective. Yes, the world is in turmoil. Yes, the evil people are taking over. Yes, life as we know it is imperiled. But that squirrel over there is having a blast.

Break Rules: Eat something you've never eaten, drink something you've never drank, listen to music you never listen to, dress up in clothing of the opposite sex, write a poem with your left hand, visit the most boring Website imaginable, walk through your house backwards, do your housework in the nude, whatever it is that you normally do, don't.

These ideas aren't a laundry list of tricks, rather, they're examples of how inspiration is often the result of a fresh perspective on things, and in an emergency extreme measures occasionally succeed. The idea is to get away from wherever it is that you are, so that you can see the picture from a different angle.

Whatever strikes you, the "so what?" test is critical. Consider the following from Wednesday's Chicago Tribune: In an article about the proliferation of news-oriented Weblogs, Glen Reynolds is discussing the downfall of Web-plagiarist Sean-Paul Kelley:

"His problem is that he didn't follow the rules of blogging. When you're posting stuff with no sources, with no links, you just become some guy on the Internet who's saying stuff."

And be sure to kill me on your way out.

12:39:26 PM