Blogging Philosophy and the Art of the Repost

I haven’t been writing. Notice there that I did not say that I haven’t been blogging. I have been in this horrible writing funk. This is not something new for me. I don’t even remember how many blogs I have started and later gotten frustrated with and deleted.

I do know that I have kept most of my blog posts in one form or another. There are some good quality posts in there. I certainly would like to see them make their way back to the interwebs. Once upon a time (and this may still be true), Blogger deleted posts that had gotten past a certain age. I found this out the hard way and a few of the posts I have written have been lost in space and time.

Watching my daughter- Taila- start putting out so much content is both impressive and a source of inspiration. I think writers need a group of people around them that are excited to read their work. You don’t write to your audience. You write to tell a story. However, knowing that someone is reading what you write makes it worthwhile.

From the Hagakure, Chapter 1:“Once when Lord Mitsushige was a little boy and was supposed to recite from a copybook for the priest Kaion, he called the other children and acolytes and said,” Please come here and listen. It is difficult to read if there are hardly any people listening.” The priest was impressed and said to the acolytes, “That is the spirit in which to do everything.” This quote is so worthwhile. All things worth doing are worth doing in a fashion you would be proud to do in front of an audience. I certainly try to bring this to my writing. I blog often, and it is my way of saying, ” Please come here and listen”

I really enjoy philosophy. It can really be found anywhere. One of my favorite books of philosophy is The Tao of Pooh by Benjamin Hoff. This gentleman took the works of A.A. Milne and extrapolated a funny and valid explanation of Taoism. This is no small feat. If you are working on finding your calm peaceful center then this book is a great place to start.

When Garin and I were doing our podcast each week I had this beautiful outlet to discuss something I love- Comic Books. I really was not able to keep recording due to time constraints. I have two kids I feel like I neglect through my absence. I couldn’t really justify, with my new career path, continuing to spend time on it. I really miss the Podcast. More than that I miss hanging with my friends talking about comics. I decided I wanted to dedicate a little of my writing to talking comics, but I don’t want to have a blog dedicated to the subject.

In fact, I think I have finally figured out how to correct a problem. I have had separate blogs for my fiction and my opinion pieces. My original blog (I don’t remember the title) is 343 typewritten pages long. None of that is out there for public consumption and that is a shame. My Knoxville Knights original work came down. I did repost my Wizard’s Task serial here.

To fix this ADD tendency of mine, I am going to have One Blog to Rule Them All. I have been searching for meaning in my titles. None has been more appropriate than David’s Boring Blog. I went back to that. www.flawedperception.com still points to this blog. That also is appropriate because it is something true to my branding. I don’t see well. I hear things slightly differently. From my experience, this means that I process and perceive things differently from others.

It probably isn’t a big surprise then that I find a ton of philosophy that speaks to me in comic books. Around the time of my first blog, I was also working on a book on dating. It is hard for me to believe that was more than a decade ago. I was happy to find some philosophy on pages lately that echoed thoughts and feelings I was trying to explain all those years ago.

Before we get to the philosophy on the page let me say this: I am not going to go to a crazy amount of trouble to get quality pages from the books. The reason for this is simple. Comic books are worth reading in their entirety. If you dig the snippets you see here go BUY a copy of the book and read the whole thing.

From Deadly Class Trade Paperback #3:

This one hit really close to home for me. I have been the “nice guy” more than a few times in my life. I have lost out in every romantic relationship I have ever been in. While I am not done being the nice guy I have started to realize that being the nice guy is a losing proposition when the girl secretly believes she deserves to be treated like dog shit. Eventually, as proven by wife #2, no matter how good you are to them the girl who believes she deserves to be treated badly and has nothing will go back to an abusive asshole over staying with the nice guy she doesn’t think she deserves.

Conversely, I think I may have fallen into this mentality myself. I don’t normally have relationships with nice women. I have often worried that I try to be some sort of shining knight saving the damsel in distress. In fact, one woman commented to me that she wasn’t damsel enough for me.  That wasn’t the case, but I do question if I have been being the abused girl. Have I let myself become so accustomed to being ignored and neglected that I don’t think I deserve a happy and normal relationship? It is certainly something to think on.

I think a lot of relationships and by extension sex. I will try not show other types of philosophy in the future from Comics (and other things), but I have to say my starting examples are very sex and relationship-centric. Sex Criminals is one of my favorite books. It is heavily R rated and as such is not for kids. The book has some relevant things to say. Every once in a while Chip and Matt whip out some nonsense like the Wide Weiner Song too. That one hurt my brain. They redeem themselves with mature perspectives and valid things to say though. Check out the below examples from Sex Criminals Issue #20:

I have been guilty of this one too. Sometimes, I have tried to fuck away an insecurity by showing my sexual prowess. This one made me think quite a bit because that wasn’t about the person I was with. It was about filling a hole inside me. That makes it kind of messed up and gross in retrospect. Then again, psychologically speaking, sex can be really messed up and gross even without crazy undertones.

The real thing I took away from this one was a good explanation of want versus need. I absolutely hate when someone says they need me or they want me to need them. That is just all sorts of dependency and messiness coming to life. I want people in my life. Needing them is a sickness. Run away from people who need you unless they are a blood relative or a dear friend with an illness.

Children are obviously an exception to the rule of need. Your kids need you up to a point. Your job as a parent is to develop them to the point they don’t need you anymore.

I am going to finish up with a return to Rick Remender’s Deadly Class. I like this book both because it is a look back at the late 1980’s and the fact that there is a lot of deep thought. Philosophy is what it is because it stays relevant over time. My nearly 40-year-old mind can connect with that of fictional 80’s teenage stereotypes because of this.  Check this out:

I wrote chapters on jealousy and possessiveness. Remender, in his masterful way, quickly explains the futility of this behavior in a handful of panels. Oddly enough, I am seen as strange because I am not possessive or jealous. In the last few relationships, I have been in my,” do what you want” attitude has lead to multiple issues. I just cannot bring myself to be jealous. It is so base.

How many relationships could be saved by getting rid of jealousy or possessiveness? I summed my view of it simply. If I can get your girl she isn’t yours anyway. If you can get mine the same is true. I have lived this one a few times as proof I am not a hypocrite. I would name examples but that holds true for nearly all of them.

I have accomplished what I set out to do here. I have put some words to the page that I can be proud of. I am not nearly as rusty as I thought. The words flow as always. I am going to finalize this post by posting up my very first post.

My first blog went up June 29th, 2005. My home had been invaded. I needed to write about it because I felt some kind of way. Sadly, the photos of the invasion did not survive (at least anywhere I can produce them easily). I hope you all enjoyed the writing up to this point, and I hope you enjoy my 25-year-old voice as well. Love me or hate me post comments. Find me on Facebook. Tweet about me. I love attention. To read my first blog post click here.