Tilt

If you are an old timer, you might remember those pinball machines.  If you got too rough with them, they would quit, and display the word "tilt" on them.

As I read through the news, I am like that pinball machine of old.  I'm about to go "tilt", and quit.

Something has to motivate you to continue with something.  It has to be a belief.  Perhaps it is not a rational thing.

So, what can motivate me to keep writing?  A desire to write only?  Perhaps that is it.

One thing I noticed is how blogs have become so commercialized.  If you can attract an audience, then the thing that can motivate you is greed.  Yep, good old fashioned greed.

Here's what I believe to be true:  too many people seem driven in pursuit of false things.  The pursuit of wealth for its own sake is a false thing, in my estimation.  It is false because money is not an end in itself, it is merely a means to an end.  What could go wrong? 

Consider the cause of environmentalism.  Is it not a reaction against the plunder of the Earth for material gain?  There was a time when environmentalism seemed like a good thing.  Now it just seems a lot like the same crass commercialism as what spawned it in the first place.  It is the same commercialism that has ruined blogging.  People in the field seem only interested in cashing in on the movement to protect the environment.  Same thing with blogging, it seems.  Blogging seemed like a good alternative to the traditional commercial news, but now?  It just seems like crap, like everything else.

What drives blogging?  You have to have an emotion to prompt you to spend all the time it takes to make a blog.  I think blogging may be a lot like the environmentalist movement that began in the sixties.  People wanted an alternative to the commercialized news sources.  Or it seemed like people wanted an alternative.  Perhaps it was all an illusion.  Perhaps people really like the commercialized crap that they see on the news each day.  Perhaps people prefer the crap.

After a pause for a bit, I continue...

Let's just say I prefer the truth.  For example, if AGW was an honest science, I would not criticize it.  If it were honest, there would be no name calling towards people who do not accept man made global warming.  There would be an honest debate about what causes climate change.  Climate change has occurred before in geological history.  Can humans cause it?  It is a fair question.  Why not attempt to answer it honestly?  But that is not what happens.

So many things are like that.  Where do you go for truth?  Maybe nowhere.  There's no money in it.  That could make you go "tilt".

If I go on with blogging, it won't be about money as an end in itself.

But it is hard to do when everybody seems to prefer the crap.