"In the Future, Everyone Will be Famous for 15 People"

Via Andrew Sullivan, we have a post from Arianna Huffington about the deepening of the financial crisis, and using blogging as a means of coping.

I suppose this is as good a time as any to unpack my reasons for starting this blog, and for (so far) doing little to promote it. I've always had strong opinions about politics, and think that at least once in awhile I can dress my opinions down in some fine caustic wit. I'd wanted to blog for awhile and even did so at ProgressiveU in a scholarship competition, but there were guidelines on content and length, and so it felt like a lot of essay writing with little of the conversational tone that my favorite blogs contain. Eventually I stopped because it was just too much work. I did have an occasional audience, though.

I myself am not sure why I haven't told all my friends to come visit my blog. A large part of it is probably insecurity (note the qualifer 'probably,' itself denoting my uncertainty). Blogging is rather geeky and narcissistic, and on some level I don't want them to know. On a more deeper level, I would like to enjoy some level of anonymity, which is hard when the only people who know your page exists are the people you interact with in the real world every day. Finally, perhaps a part of me doesn't want this to be read. Oh, it's in the public and so I'm not going to say anything too shaming, but it is putting myself out on a limb, and I would prefer the people who visit this site do so out of an interest in what I'm saying, and not as a voyeuristic means of peering into my mind. But it is nice interacting with people. At the beginning of last (school) year I was tapped to moderate at ProgressiveU, but I turned the offer down because I was too busy. I may inquire about offer after I graduate. What else am I going to do?

Yes, another reason for starting this is the vain hope that I get noticed and someone will eventually want to pay me to bloviate. And with the future so uncertain, I figure I might as well start sending out some feelers and making the most of my skills (opinion writing, cartooning, playwrighting/acting(/directing?) to see if something sticks. Unfortunately my skills lie in the arts, which are always the first to suffer financially, if not creatively, during an economic downturn. It's a hell of a time to join the job market, but at the end of this year I'll be financially and academically tapped out, and need some time to recharge. Joe Strummer once said the future is unwritten, but in this case it is more so, in part because our leadership of the last eight years has been illiterate. Writing is my greatest strength, however, so I guess I am most qualified do something about it.