Day 1: or The Foray into the Very Public and Very Permanent Nature of the Virtual Written Word
The time has come - largely due to the fact that I have recently learned that if one ever wants to be employed, one must write, and as such daily. And to further this, they must write for the unknown public (who may never actually chance upon this blog) and as a form of practice for future professional endeavors. In order to take this leap I must take an attitude of comic indifference to the work that is produced on this medium. Meaning, in essence, that all subsequent posts shall be considered a work in progress — or a series of ever evolving thoughts — nonlinear in nature — but hopefully moving towards a form of greater clarity. They shall, I presume, contradict each other, overlap, defy the common practice of precision of thought or logicality in reference to each other. This does not mean I intend to write only for the sake of doing so — but in the awareness that one must do so in order to experiment with thought. To engage with the world in a deeper and more meaningful way, one must test and pose ideas which will inevitably find themselves to be only of temporary use — stepping stones to better thoughts and ideas.
Partially for the sake of my own entertainment and sanity I shall use this forum for other purposes beyond the meanderings necessary for the construction of a PhD. Much of the research undertaken in this process must be done in isolation — and one finds oneself talking to oneself considerably more than is typically desired. And so it is that I often find myself in an echo chamber — living in the abstraction of theory that may or may not have relevance to the real world and the actuality of the fascinating political and social events that comprise our reality. In an effort to ground both myself and my thoughts — I shall take these working theories and pose them within conversation with those that have lived and acted through the object of my study: revolution. I hope to engage with these individuals and hopefully find ourselves in stimulating debate around the validity and use of these academic constructs -informed by their knowledge and experience. Together, we will attempt to use this as a mechanism to deepen our collective understanding around the meaning of politics, activism and revolution — and why this matters.
This blog shall be an experiment with form and methodology — preparation and reflections on fieldwork and research. I aim to freely dabble with style, theoretical constructs, structure, presentation, and mixed media. Open and flexible to change, I hope to create a standard of malleability in which both participants and readers can share thoughts and suggestions to improve the means and methods by which questions are asked and received. As stated earlier, this is a process to detach from the preciousness of one’s words — and in this vein, I hope, and invite others to engage in these discussions, thereby adding richness and life into what otherwise would be a very limited monologue.
I shall leave you with this last entreaty towards conversation — and also use my last lines to shamelessly request anyone who has, or knows anyone who has participated in activism or revolution to send me a quick message if they are interested in being interviewed and forming an oral history of revolution :)
PS: The first project will be an intergenerational interview around The Day The Women Went on Strike in Iceland (1975).
