Building goodwill

Talking about yourself is inherent in nature of blogs, and to a lesser extent, all narrative writing. I guess that newswriting in the purest sense lacks all self -- in J-school they teach you its all about the who, what, when, where and why. Inverted pyramid structure, with the most important facts at the beginning and slowly getting less important it goes on.

But the gaping maw of the Internet requires constant updates if you want to maintain any kind of readership. The problem is, there just isn't enough quality material to fill the void. But if you post intimate details of your life, people will probably read it. Thus you have "oversharing," in which internet writers post so much information about their lives reading it crosses the line from voyeurism into the kind of shared-living-space banality. Thus you learn the most interesting part of a person you vaguely knew in high school's life is the color of their latest bowel movement.

I don't like to overshare, it is an exercise in narcissism. A desperate cry to be heard, to maintain a sense of self-importance among a million voices. And its probably true that this blog suffers because of my tendency to err on the side of the meek. Putting every aspect of your life online is just grating, and can be a recipe for a train wreck.

All that said: I spent last weekend just cold helping folks move their shit to new locations. First I helped Sinclair move for the third time in nine months. But that doesn't even really count because as a "move" per say: He has like 9 items to his name, two of which are giant speakers. So that was the warm up move for the main event -- helping the sister move 2 miles in Brooklyn. Which was ... fun?


No, it was good. As I said, I don't like posting personal details of my life on the internet, so let's just say there there was a lot of biking and some drinking. Also we went to some place called Hot Diggity Dogs. But a big reason I enjoyed myself, and what I think is the point of this rambling nonsense, is the altruism. Shocking, really, I know some of you like to think of this blogger as an angry asshole, but in fact I do actually enjoy helping others. Usually.

There is a certain sense of satisfaction to be gained by a job done well with no tangible benefit to oneself. That feeling is reimbursement, I suppose, but you can't actually touch contentment, it's not a physical thing. Plus if you aren't getting paid the person you are helping can't really complain when you accidentally put a hole in their wall with a box-spring mattress (surprisingly easy). And with that, I'm unceremoniously ending this rambling mess of a post.