The Last Post

There was a contest at my University with a $100 dollar prize, a creative writing contest.
I forget the name of it now but the basic idea was something like this. "In some countries, technological interactions, like aim and blogs, are controlled and censored by the government (we all knew this) If you lived in one of those countries, and this was the last blog post you could write before the law was enacted, what would you say?" The deadline already passed for submissions, but the poster got me thinking. I suppose though I'd probably be in trouble for actually speaking my mind, even if the blog law was not technically in force yet. Bit of a problem there still, but I get the idea. If you knew oppression was coming, hell, if you knew death was coming - it may as well be - what would you say? I thought about it and realized I had no clue.

I think the most fun part of blogging is that we all can feel like Shakespeare; we can bang out a few letters on our keyboards and pretend they mean something, imagine we too are great and that we will touch people's hearts and lives. We can write the American way and celebrate our equality: our mediocrity. If everything out there is special, then nothing really is. So, we get a lot of crap out there, honored with 13th place medals and tucked in the mental crevices of the five people who saw more than the title before hitting that "next blog" link in their perpetual Google search to dull the boredom.

As a cynic (but remember, I'm a cynic who took the time to bang this out on her own blog) I have to ask, is it really that big of a loss?

I already hate myself for that last line. Of course it matters! Free speech matters, no matter how idiotic. This country may be a caught in a cycle of mediocrity, but is that so bad? Only a few will ever be dedicated to excellence, most people will never even strive for glory, but is that a problem; is that a reason to mock them or trivialize the silencing of millions of voices? No, screw the cynics. The principles of equality and of free speech are anything but lukewarm. They may lead to glorification of the average and the remotely interesting, but it all deserves to be out there. The courage to give it to the world, to stand up proud on your dust speck and give a full-hearted yawp is reason enough.

The critics and cynics could slam you into the ground or torture you with anticipation and slowly beat you to death with their winding, nonsensical yet unwavering bureaucracies. Even fellow writers, colleagues and bloggers may tell you its all pointless: no one will like it or worse, no one will read it.

But you click away at the keyboard anyway, so good luck and congrats to all the other bloggers out there. I still have no idea what I'd say if this were my last blog post. I'd like to think I'd have a fierce, emboldening battle cry "te arma! te arma!" But that's another story.