Sunday
Feb132011
On Inspirational Weblogs, One Note Wonders, And The Need To Trust My Gurus
Sunday, February 13, 2011
I told myself I would eat healthier this year, and I have been. When I haven't been eating peanut butter cookies.
I was lying in bed this morning thinking about my recent affairs with peanut butter cookies — there was that one from the mall coffee shop whose moistness bordered on damp, but still it melted like good fudge on the back of my tongue where I pushed its roughness up against the roof of my mouth — and I realize that I've been happier since I started my cookie-rich diet. I was less happy before the cookies, and now I'm happier.
Much like my alcoholic love of beer, though, I do not keep any peanut butter cookies in the house. Then, I would have a problem. So would my new jeans. I am sure that my body could really go for some broiled asparagus rolled in olive oil and coarse salt right now, but this is the fine balance between happiness and living a full life.
I was giving some thought to this while I read Breed 'Em and Weep's "I Want You To Know This" as I watched the sun rise through my curtains, and I felt so very right, so very at ease with what she had written, because she was honest and clear and hopeful and positive, and it was tempered with realism, the truth of the hardship that life is, the obstacles that cross us. She told a real story, a practical story, one that can be touched and held and reasoned with and believed.
She exhibited all of the things that I strive to exhibit while spreading a message of love and happiness and encouragement. You maybe didn't know that I was trying to do that. I didn't either until recently, but that's what I'm doing, and since I realized that that is what I am doing with Five Star Friday and Grace in Small Things and the Canadian Weblog Awards and my weblog here, I've realized just what it is that irritates me with a certain movement in weblogs today.
(I get to say "what it is that irritates me with a certain movement in weblogs today" like some cranky old lady with a pointy finger, because I've been at this weblog since August 2003, and that confers a certain amount of elder wisdom on the internet. Or, at least I think it does. I'm pretty smart.)
You can spot an inspirational weblog fairly easily. They tend to be very tidy and visually pleasing — which is good, and this is what drew me to them originally — and they tend to tell us one or all of at least these three things: a) how happy/fulfilled/inspired the author is, b) how you can be as happy/fulfilled/inspired as the author is, and c) what that happiness will behave/look/feel like when you are in a better position than you are now.
On the surface, I do find inspirational weblogs inspiring to an extent, and I do want to love them, because they are the bright cupcakes of the weblog world, and they offer up such nice ideas about simplicity and feeling good, but so often they just fall flat. They are the cool new friend who perpetually seems to be having fun, and I really want to emulate her, but then that's where it ends. The experience goes nowhere. They are just the fun friend. There is no dynamism. What originally looked like depth starts to look like a flat EKG line, and I realize that, yet again, I've fallen for a One Note Wonder.
Most of us have met the person who has such a good time oh my god isn't this fun let's do this let's go over here let's meet these people life is an adventure wow, and you think her life looks so exciting and full, and you enjoy the ride for a while, but then one night you find her in the bathroom at a party crouched between the toilet and the bathtub ready to end her life because nobody loves her, and you realize that she's not close to anyone at all and that her seemingly broad and strong web of social connections is about as deep and strong as tissue paper, and it becomes clear that your relationship was with a thin veneer of fun and not a whole person at all.
One Note Wonder is a term I have long used to describe people like this, people that work to hit primarily one emotional/psychological note, and it's generally a warning sign. It tells me that they do not trust others enough to let them in. It tells me that they are actively hiding parts of themselves from others. It tells me that they have hidden motives for entering into their relationships other than actually being with people in those social relationships.
It's a terrible game of bait and switch, because there is a promise of connection, but that perceived relationship is just a picture of a connection, a facsimile. It's a relationship that behaves like a friendship without ever moving deeper. This was a hard lesson I learned several times through my teens and twenties: sometimes a façade is just a façade.
With their tendency to fall into the One Note Wonder trap, this is how I end up feeling about most inspirational weblogs. I really dig the aesthetic, the apparent ethos, at first, but if I only ever have one kind of experience there, if there is only ever one message, one mood, I start to wonder what's up. I still like the message, but I trust where it's coming from less and less. I remember the dissonance that often lies between the thin shellac of one sustained note and the reality of living beneath it, and I wonder what's being hidden. I cease to understand who is speaking to me and why I am listening to them.
Life is messy. It hurts a lot. Bodies are always getting sick and dying. Human relationships can be complicated and passionate. This is why inspirational weblogs are so alluring, and they can act as fabulous oases, but I need more than One Note Wonders. I just need more. I need to feel a connection not only to its happy message but to the roots of that message. I need to see the practical reality of growth and change toward positive paths. I need to see the groundwork from which these things spring and the true bits of human experience to which they apply. I need to see more than happy thoughts and happy work applied to a happy continuum.
There is no point in gluing glue to glue.
Without depth, my trust is lost, because something is being held back. I am being lead along a sweet path without any teeth.
I am not saying that every weblog author must bare their soul to their readers. That, when overdone, is tiresome. What I am saying, though, is that if a weblog author aims to share an inspirational message but rarely if ever reaches above or below the idealized happiness continuum, if they do not reach through that message to show rather than tell, their words fall flat and false.
All that happiness, that talk of meaningfulness, the persuasion to feel without real communication about how that happens, when wrapped up in the pretty aesthetic of a Martha Stewart bow, begins to look a bit pathological, neurotic and kneejerk, defensive.
I need to trust my gurus, and in order for me to trust my gurus, they must have heart, meaty and human hearts. They must have the courage to be vulnerable, to show me how they got there and why they are still there. I need to know that they can do the hard stuff so that I can believe that what I learn from them will help me to do the hard stuff.
I have turned decidedly carnivorous when it comes to my desired style of inspiration. I want some blood and some sweat in it; I want some vulnerability and fear. I want a little more animal heat and a little less conservative sweetness. I need to know and believe, not emote; I do not want to skirt a passionate life with sweet comfort.
There is definitely space for the cucumber-sandwiches-and-refreshing-constitutionals coterie, but I'll stand by this: the sweater set and glowing skin are nice, but, when it comes to the real meat of happiness and living a full life, the flesh beneath is richer and decidedly more honest.
It is the courageous heart that bears the fruit.
I was lying in bed this morning thinking about my recent affairs with peanut butter cookies — there was that one from the mall coffee shop whose moistness bordered on damp, but still it melted like good fudge on the back of my tongue where I pushed its roughness up against the roof of my mouth — and I realize that I've been happier since I started my cookie-rich diet. I was less happy before the cookies, and now I'm happier.
Much like my alcoholic love of beer, though, I do not keep any peanut butter cookies in the house. Then, I would have a problem. So would my new jeans. I am sure that my body could really go for some broiled asparagus rolled in olive oil and coarse salt right now, but this is the fine balance between happiness and living a full life.
I was giving some thought to this while I read Breed 'Em and Weep's "I Want You To Know This" as I watched the sun rise through my curtains, and I felt so very right, so very at ease with what she had written, because she was honest and clear and hopeful and positive, and it was tempered with realism, the truth of the hardship that life is, the obstacles that cross us. She told a real story, a practical story, one that can be touched and held and reasoned with and believed.
She exhibited all of the things that I strive to exhibit while spreading a message of love and happiness and encouragement. You maybe didn't know that I was trying to do that. I didn't either until recently, but that's what I'm doing, and since I realized that that is what I am doing with Five Star Friday and Grace in Small Things and the Canadian Weblog Awards and my weblog here, I've realized just what it is that irritates me with a certain movement in weblogs today.
(I get to say "what it is that irritates me with a certain movement in weblogs today" like some cranky old lady with a pointy finger, because I've been at this weblog since August 2003, and that confers a certain amount of elder wisdom on the internet. Or, at least I think it does. I'm pretty smart.)
You can spot an inspirational weblog fairly easily. They tend to be very tidy and visually pleasing — which is good, and this is what drew me to them originally — and they tend to tell us one or all of at least these three things: a) how happy/fulfilled/inspired the author is, b) how you can be as happy/fulfilled/inspired as the author is, and c) what that happiness will behave/look/feel like when you are in a better position than you are now.
On the surface, I do find inspirational weblogs inspiring to an extent, and I do want to love them, because they are the bright cupcakes of the weblog world, and they offer up such nice ideas about simplicity and feeling good, but so often they just fall flat. They are the cool new friend who perpetually seems to be having fun, and I really want to emulate her, but then that's where it ends. The experience goes nowhere. They are just the fun friend. There is no dynamism. What originally looked like depth starts to look like a flat EKG line, and I realize that, yet again, I've fallen for a One Note Wonder.
Most of us have met the person who has such a good time oh my god isn't this fun let's do this let's go over here let's meet these people life is an adventure wow, and you think her life looks so exciting and full, and you enjoy the ride for a while, but then one night you find her in the bathroom at a party crouched between the toilet and the bathtub ready to end her life because nobody loves her, and you realize that she's not close to anyone at all and that her seemingly broad and strong web of social connections is about as deep and strong as tissue paper, and it becomes clear that your relationship was with a thin veneer of fun and not a whole person at all.
One Note Wonder is a term I have long used to describe people like this, people that work to hit primarily one emotional/psychological note, and it's generally a warning sign. It tells me that they do not trust others enough to let them in. It tells me that they are actively hiding parts of themselves from others. It tells me that they have hidden motives for entering into their relationships other than actually being with people in those social relationships.
It's a terrible game of bait and switch, because there is a promise of connection, but that perceived relationship is just a picture of a connection, a facsimile. It's a relationship that behaves like a friendship without ever moving deeper. This was a hard lesson I learned several times through my teens and twenties: sometimes a façade is just a façade.
With their tendency to fall into the One Note Wonder trap, this is how I end up feeling about most inspirational weblogs. I really dig the aesthetic, the apparent ethos, at first, but if I only ever have one kind of experience there, if there is only ever one message, one mood, I start to wonder what's up. I still like the message, but I trust where it's coming from less and less. I remember the dissonance that often lies between the thin shellac of one sustained note and the reality of living beneath it, and I wonder what's being hidden. I cease to understand who is speaking to me and why I am listening to them.
Life is messy. It hurts a lot. Bodies are always getting sick and dying. Human relationships can be complicated and passionate. This is why inspirational weblogs are so alluring, and they can act as fabulous oases, but I need more than One Note Wonders. I just need more. I need to feel a connection not only to its happy message but to the roots of that message. I need to see the practical reality of growth and change toward positive paths. I need to see the groundwork from which these things spring and the true bits of human experience to which they apply. I need to see more than happy thoughts and happy work applied to a happy continuum.
There is no point in gluing glue to glue.
Without depth, my trust is lost, because something is being held back. I am being lead along a sweet path without any teeth.
I am not saying that every weblog author must bare their soul to their readers. That, when overdone, is tiresome. What I am saying, though, is that if a weblog author aims to share an inspirational message but rarely if ever reaches above or below the idealized happiness continuum, if they do not reach through that message to show rather than tell, their words fall flat and false.
All that happiness, that talk of meaningfulness, the persuasion to feel without real communication about how that happens, when wrapped up in the pretty aesthetic of a Martha Stewart bow, begins to look a bit pathological, neurotic and kneejerk, defensive.
I need to trust my gurus, and in order for me to trust my gurus, they must have heart, meaty and human hearts. They must have the courage to be vulnerable, to show me how they got there and why they are still there. I need to know that they can do the hard stuff so that I can believe that what I learn from them will help me to do the hard stuff.
I have turned decidedly carnivorous when it comes to my desired style of inspiration. I want some blood and some sweat in it; I want some vulnerability and fear. I want a little more animal heat and a little less conservative sweetness. I need to know and believe, not emote; I do not want to skirt a passionate life with sweet comfort.
There is definitely space for the cucumber-sandwiches-and-refreshing-constitutionals coterie, but I'll stand by this: the sweater set and glowing skin are nice, but, when it comes to the real meat of happiness and living a full life, the flesh beneath is richer and decidedly more honest.
It is the courageous heart that bears the fruit.
categorized in health, writing and blogging and tagged in blogging, blogs, courage, depression, happiness, inspiration, inspirational, one note wonder, weblogs
health, writing and blogging and tagged in blogging, blogs, courage, depression, happiness, inspiration, inspirational, one note wonder, weblogs 
Reader Comments (40)
You are MY guru...this post is why I continue to read your writing. Your writing conintues to intigue me with it's honest vunerabilty and your ability to express elusive emotions. Your writing has depth and warmth and it's funny....
Thank you....
I love this so much. Give me the Velveteen Rabbit blogs any day, with their fur rubbed off and perhaps an eye missing. Beautifully said.
You nailed it, dear Schmutzie. My life is so great, and I'm so thankful. I'm also cranky and selfish and forgetful and lazy and waste time piddling around. And I'm full of glory and have a soaring heart. Except when I don't. Or when I have a heart that skips along like a heart across smooth water...bouncing up, dipping down, making messy splashes.
Some of the "inspirational" blogs take on the quality of QVC infomercials - everything is always good, even when you can see there right on camera that the Amazing Chicken Roaster is made of cheap plastic and bendy metal.
I'd rather hear about the heart and soul and guts, and I try to be truthful myself. It just feels weird now when I don't.
Hear, hear. Thank you for putting some meat on them bones.
Good post!
Lately, I think I am hearing more and more of the real You in you writing, not only the Schmutzie, and I like it.
There is no point in glueing glue to glue. GLUE TO GLUE.
Schmutzie, I have been reading your blog for years. I came up to you at BlogHer to say hello ... and you were *so* gracious, even though it was during lunch and you had to balance your pile of food over to one side to shake my hand.
I love this post. Thank you for articulating your truth around what you like about blogging, because it helped me inform my own truth.
Before you got sober, I used to read of your escapades going out, having a good time, looking at your pics of beer - and I was a bit envious. (I've been in recovery over ten years now ... occasionally I miss the "scene.") . Then you stopped the drink and said why on your blog, and I loved you even more for that.
Thank you for being real.
Eden
Please pretend that pesky E isn't in the word gluing, above. Thanks.
On the internet, I am probably a one note wonder. I use the internet for certain things--it keeps me a bit narrow.
But in real life. I wonder. I hope not.
I hide so much of myself in real life. Is that bad? People are cruel and they rarely understand me. I don't trust them.
Damn, this might be why I haven't made a new deeply close friend in years. Too scary.
My friend once explained certain people will shy away from me (and her, at times): The Blank People. They put a lot of effort in being blank. If you aren't blank, they try to get away as quickly as possible because you are sort of messing with their blankness.
This post prompts a lot of self-searching for me. I agreed with you about Breedemandweep's post. It's brilliant and helpful. You do that brilliant and helpful thing. I have never considered that but it's such a good use of one's writing.
I honestly don't care what people do with their writing that I read as long as it's real. When it's real, it's good. If it's nihilism or ridiculously hopeful or silly or whatever---when it comes from an authentic place, I will read it with interest.
Did you make up that gluing glue to glue idea? Pretty good!
This is another reason why I love you. Yes, yes and YES!
Although it does make me wonder if I've done some of this on my own blog. I have family reading and that keeps me guarded in *not* writing some things, and politics. There's always someone that disagrees with one's politics, right? I wonder if I'm guarded because I'm scared of showing who I really am, or if I'm scared of who I will scare off if I do?
I am a positive person by nature but that doesn't mean that ugliness doesn't exist or that I don't have sweaty, meaty thoughts. I can't help trying to find something postive in what's around me. I don't ignore the darker emotions or the deeper feelings but I try not to let them get the better of me. There are blogs I've stopped reading because of the "unicorns and rainbows" attitude but there are also blogs that I have stopped reading because they're all about the thunder and lightning with nothing else.
I like blogs (and people) who encompass both sides of life. Who can deal with the ugly and still appreciate the truly beautiful around them.
Yes. xo
loved this. i like my beauty in the dirt and blood. i don't trust anything that's all flowers. hence, my skeevy response to Valentine's.
I love this so much and I want to print it out and stick on the wall beside my desk and maybe put a heart sticker on it and reflect it over and over and over again.
Funny. I started this year intent on writing more inspiring posts, more often, and focusing less on my foibles and shortcomings and mistakes. But the shine vanished rather quickly.
I may not post much, but when I do, it's real.
Thanks for this …
As somebody who writes something that I suppose could be termed an 'inspirational weblog,' thank you. I needed to read this. Because while I always try to be open and honest (I write about my struggles with motherhood, with marriage, with day to day life even as I encourage my readers to try harder, shift perspective, stay positive) the temptation is sometimes there to turn myself and my blog into a prettier, more palatable package. I resist it... mostly. But this is a good reminder to keep digging deep and really sharing meaty stuff. Because you're right--there are certain blogs out there that look really pretty and include a lot of inspirational quotes and seem to say uplifting things, but I can scroll through five or six posts and feel like nothing has actually been said. I don't want to be like that.
TRUTHBOMB!
You totally nailed it. Loved this post! I'm with you. Don't give me the glossy wrapped package. Give me the shattered pieces, slowly being pieced back together.
Right on. Perpetually fulfilled people do not inspire me to reach fulfillment, they cause me to darkly mutter about how it's easy to be happy when your life is (apparently) effortless. It's the people who are fulfilled in spite of those moments of darkness and doubt that are really on on to something.
I don't read inspirational blogs. I gravitate towards humor which is never far from heartache. I actually had trouble with my post today because it was positive for a change. I'm afraid my readers aren't interested in the good, just the screw-ups. But I'm also afraid that if everything is written from one perspective (humor) then it begins to feel less honest. Multi-dimensional is always more interesting and much more real. Hopefully, my readers will agree.
It's funny how the right post can happen at the right time and it seems like coincidence or maybe it's not. This really spoke to me. I was going to take a post down today because I'm so angry in it and I don't find a hopeful, light note for the end. Because I'm not there yet. Then, I read this and even though it wasn't *for* me, it really worked for me.
I don't bleed on the screen as much as I just write about what I see, think, experience or wonder about. Things come up, of course, b/c it's real life after all, but it doesn't mean that my readers are entitled to it for entertainment purposes or that I am obligated to edify them. And the guru thing is personal and best done with people you can see, touch, smell and (if they will let you) taste b/c otherwise, you have no idea if they are false or true. Hard enough to gauge the actual but the virtual?
Maybe Mary Sunshine sees her blog as the only place where she can emote positively. Her blog is about her, not her readers. Blogging is a pretty ego-centric act. I have my doubts that any of us come to the keyboard from a place of pure altruism.
I especially love that you posted this on Valentine's Day -- when the pressure is even more intense to succumb to manufactured happiness or perfection.
"Life is messy. It hurts a lot."
Amen.
That post you linked to is INCREDIBLE. Wow.
I completely agree with you. I find a lot more connection to a friend/blogger/person when they are willing to share the other side of the rainbow - the dark side. The side with no unicorns or flying ponies.
Thank you.
See? Now /that/ was an inspirational post. I just adore you, lady and this post rang true - and I could not agree more with this: "It is the courageous heart that bears the fruit" and I shall be carrying that with me for a while. You are fantastic. Happy love day, love.
This might be my first time here and I'm so struck by this post. I want this, exactly. I've got a bit of this going on in my real life that I just hadn't put my finger on. Thank you.
Steph
Amen! You just put into words something that has been scratching at the back of my brain over the last year.
Perfectly said. I think real inspiration comes from truth - and the truth is that life is messy.
Great post.
Your description of One Note Wonders reminded me a bit of my ex-husband. I used to think he was like a New York street vendor, who could set up shop on a moment's notice, but tear down and be on his way just as readily....
You reek authenticity. And I mean that as the highest compliment. I love what you do on the internet (all over the internet).
This is one of those posts that I will keep on my special list.
I read this like four days ago and I keep thinking about it. It's just so wonderful.
I just found you through anymommy. I think I just found myself in your post. thank you
Yes. This.
I prefer the mess of the blood and gore of real emotions to the syrup sappiness of inspirational sugar. I find my inspiration through other's survival; when their spirits shine through adversity and hardship.
I like to keep it real.
Which is why I adore you.
Gotta have grit. Otherwise it's like the 22 year old yoga teacher telling me to connect to the earth and let the day's stress melt away so I can feel the prana. To which my prana wants to say "look bitch, when you've had 2 kids, a miscarriage, a c=section, a broken tail bone, a fulltime job, and abs that look like pudding with that milky scum across the top, THEN you can talk to me about letting the day melt away. But not one goddam minute before." Which is not to say that youth can't have grit, or honesty, or real apprehensions of what it means to experience the world. It's just to say that happy-facing us isn't really "inspiring." It's more like false advertising.
True inspiration comes from having gone through the ring of fire, like Johnny Cash says, and coming out the other side--but not ignoring the fire once you've made it through.
Which is really only to say your post rocks.
I'm an inspirational blogger, and at first I was a bit put off by this post. Mostly because I wondered how guilty I am of committing the 'sins' you speak of. I am probably a one trick pony... Which means I need to dig deeper. Thank you for a reminder about baring my soul and heart a bit more. I needed this today as I begin to write a post. I think I shall scrap the one I was looking at and try for something a bit more meaty.
Just found my way over here via Communicatrix. Love what you've written here - you articulate so well something that has been spiraling around in my (and I'm sure many others') head. That's writing worth reading.
OK - now I just read your about page and have decided this discrimination must be tied to our prairie roots. I grew up in Saskatoon. Love you even more now that I know you are in Regina.
Is that bacon? Because I love bacon. And Canadians.
This post has so much truth in it. I am struggling with naming something in my life right now and this might be it. It's related to being authentic.
It's also about balance. I do not like the complain-y type blogs either. There needs to be a good balance between truth, honesty, positive messages, growth and learning.
Thanks for this post.
Dang.
I have a friend who used to be a personal blogger who bared all, and then she changed to be an inspirational blogger. I miss the old blog. I wonder if she misses it, too.
I love every word of this. People always tell me I'm too "intense." Yeah, well guess what: Life is intense.
I just came across a sign the other day that I loved and meant to Tweet and got busy and forget, but here's what it said:
TRUST YOUR STRUGGLE.
That beautiful, scary truth is no cucumber sandwich. Thank you for helping us all trust our struggles.
I search the internet reading blog after blog to find blogs like yours. Real. I couldn't have said it better. Inspirational blogs have their purpose, I guess, but I like blogs that tell it like it is. A blog I can relate with. My life ain't perfect and I don't see perfect all around me either. I hate fake and It's everywhere, and then people wonder why half the population needs antidepressants. You can't measure up to fake and I don't believe people should try.