Electronic Soapbox

Upon establishing an internet blog, one asks oneself, what is one's credo? What is the point, beyond re-confirming one's slipping sense self-importance, of throwing your voice out onto the electronic soapbox?

I live in New York, which besides automatically qualifying me as an authority on just about everything significant, allows me to witness actual, live-action soapbox types on a daily basis. And from what I can tell, the one common thread amongst these people, who believe that they have a God-given right to hijack your time if you allow them, is that they are all absolutely crazy. People stop to leer at them with the kind of disbelief one expresses at watching masturbating baboons. The soapbox speaker, however, sees at the least, sympathetic viewpoints; at the most, wide-eyed, would be apostles.

So, if we take for granted that these people are nuts, then tangentially, we may arrive at the question, what is the big difference about the quack lecturing over an installation of aborted fetuses in Union Square, and yours truly, lecturing about the quack on my own electronic soapbox?

Other than the aborted fetuses (for the record, that's a true story - I saw a woman painting aborted fetuses, with ducktape covering her nipples), the main differences would be A) level of conviction, and B) stupidity.

Point B is easy enough: these people are idiots, who by putting themselves up on a soapbox automatically make everyone else disregard what they're talking about. And if there's anything that New Yorker's love to do, it's disregarding others.

Point A is more contentious, because it necessitates inspecting one's own shortcomings, namely that I am lacking in any real convictions. The problem with me is that I don't really believe in much of anything, other than that I feel I am entitled to a great deal and while willing to work for it, would never get up in front of anyone and really ask for it, or even for a little moral support.

So I guess that is the theme of this blog: quietly besmirching others and hopefully stumbling upon a few convictions along the way.