Yesterday was my 44th birthday. To celebrate, I’m killing the Clog.
It was never my intention that the Clog should become a measure of my unhappiness living here in the U.S. Instead, I always meant it to be a vehicle for writing, a way to chronicle exciting times and random interesting observations that might be of interest to people who know me. Accidentally, it became a lamentation of the Bush years, punctuated here and there with moments where I felt genuine excitement about a phenomenon, whether linguistic, ideological, artistic, extraplanetary, or historical.
I occasionally look back at old posts, like this one, which captured the way I still feel about Americans, or their paucity of cultural richness, and find that I really have nothing new to observe. I’ve pretty much said all I have to say about what has become before. As I follow my slow and deliberate plans to leave this forlorn place, the Clog becomes something that interests me less and less.
Despite the success of MySpace, Facebook, Twitter, and any other trendy form of white noise, less and less is said using ever more bandwidth.
So, I am subtracting the Clog from that consumer-driven equation that yields complexities with no substance. I, like so many others out there, really have nothing to add to the Great Argument. My sound bytes are no more special than any others, although they are often better written. And since analysis or introspection has no real place in the Great Argument, why bother continuing? There are other ways for me to spend this energy. My plans for that energy require that I stab the Clog in the heart.
Thanks, dear readers. It’s been a great 6 years. Therapy without the bills, if you will.