I was cleaning up my hard disk today – and i discovered a little piece i had downloaded a few years ago – its a thought that both attracted and terrified me then.  

Still does in some ways, but also resonates deep inside me today …… 

The Invitation

It doesn’t interest me what you do for a living. I want to know what you ache for and if you dare to dream of meeting your heart’s longing.

It doesn’t interest me how old you are. I want to know if you will risk looking like a fool for love for your dream for the adventure of being alive.

It doesn’t interest me what planets are squaring your moon… I want to know if you have touched the centre of your own sorrow if you have been opened by life’s betrayals or have become shrivelled and closed from fear of further pain.

I want to know if you can sit with pain mine or your own without moving to hide it or fade it or fix it.

I want to know if you can be with joy mine or your own if you can dance with wildness and let the ecstasy fill you to the tips of your fingers and toes without cautioning us to be careful be realistic remember the limitations of being human.

It doesn’t interest me if the story you are telling me is true. I want to know if you can disappoint another to be true t

…excerpt from: Conversations with Dina

Does this ring a bell ?

You Know You Blog wayyyyy too much when… [thanks Sameer, for the link]

“… you post the wrong article on the wrong blog
… your family prefers to interact with you through your blogs.
… you met your girlfriend/boyfriend through a blog.
… your “blog community” is much, much larger than the number of people you know in real life.
… you consider yourself an “alternative journalist”.
… you start your day by checking your blog stats.
… a day without blogging seems like a month without food.
… your feedreader is open all day.
… you get more “approve this comment” email messages than spam.
… you know what RSS stands for and you know how weak the medium is.
… people worry about you when you do not post anything for a day.
… work is the little time you spend in between writing on your blog and IRC.
… my pagerank is bigger than yours!
… invalid XHTML is a bad word to you.
… you check your blogshares weekly, more than you check your savings account.

excerpt from: Conversations with Dina

Awesome – part 2. I’m too tired right now to follow and read all the links on the page but I plan to make a point to do it tomorrow.

Conversations with Dina
[excerpt]
“Every reader is a writer, every writer is a reader.” – Jay Rosen

Writing my last post made me reflect on how i write a blog post.

Sometimes my experiences just trigger off thoughts and i use my blog as an outlet to share thoughts, sometimes feelings, test ideas, and even rant. At other times, i voice my point of view on a subject and try to add value by linking to relevant posts or articles. And some posts are more ‘constructed’ – i read something and pull together pieces that somehow come together in my mind.

Awesome – part 1

Conversations with Dina
[excerpt]
Lilia talks about ‘Weblog as a pen’ :

A piece I guess I have to cut out from a paper I’m trying to finish:

Weblogs serve many purposes. Like a pen could be used to write a diary, a novel, a letter to a friend, or just a shopping list pinned to a fridge door, weblogging tools can be used in a variety of ways. For instance, they can provide a venue for self-expression, serve as a community space or be used to publish formal corporate news.

That was my reaction on the whole “weblog as a genre” discussion. Do you study “pen as a genre”?