20080831

Truth and Consequence

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Inspiration...
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Where do I find it to make another post? If I thought simply not abandoning all of you would be enough to keep me going, I was wrong. If I thought that by isolating myself so as not to be seen as aligning with any particular side that I could stay connected enough to secure your trust, I am afraid I was wrong again. If I thought I could help my readers to face the dark sides of fandom by revealing them in myself without becoming a casualty, I was wrong. If I thought the truth would set me free, I was dead on.
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I am free to write a blog or not and my readers are free from obligation to read it. This is good on the one hand because no one wants to feel beholden to something which challenges their opinions of what is right and true. But on the other hand I wish folks would allow themselves to be challenged equally by the truths they so readily accept.
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I have many of my own tightly clung to truths as well. Some of them I have said aloud and some I have kept to myself. Some of them I am throwing away today because they just are not valuable to me anymore. They do not tell the kind of stories I want to hear or listen to. They reflect a man who got caught up in a movement and almost forgot he was alone. They tell the tale of one who sought approval and worried endlessly about whether it was forthcoming. They spin a conflicted yarn about truth, consequence, failure and flight. I am not shutting down this blog, instead I am shutting down my expectations of what this blog could or should be and I am asking a question: "Why must the show go on?"
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5 comments:

Anonymous said...

This post has be puzzled, since I don't know your expectations.

I do hope that you keep the blog open, since I enjoy reading your entries.

Anything in a fandom that becomes an obligation is hard. You are here to enjoy yourself, but the obligation weighs you down.

You ask "Why must the show go on?" and I wonder if you mean Jericho or Jericho Junction. I believe both have a future.

Gwen

terocious said...

Hi Gwen,

I have no intention of shutting down the Junction. I will post when I can and live up to my commitment of posting the Jericho Personals when they come my way but I am divorcing myself from the daily hope that the Jericho Fandom at large will consider my blog to have value. It seems, except for a few extraordinary advocates, I can lose friends just as fast as I can make them and it all revolves around what part of my personality I choose to divulge in the blog. To this end I have removed my sitemeter and the tally of visitors to the site because I am finding my obsession with whether or not I am getting any visitors to be unhealthy. It is better off for me not to know. It will make the blog less susceptible to posts like the one today. I have nothing to lose by being honest except the respect of the rangers and if I lose it because I was honest I submit to you that I never really had it to begin with.

Having said that I would like to add that I believe Jericho blogs and Jericho bloggers are taken for granted. This is something I have always hesitated to say because I did not want to appear whiney. But even taking myself out of it I feel as though the people who have blogged Jericho all along have left as much out of a lack of support as anything else. I say this because as Debby from S.C. pointed out it is really tough to blog in a vacuum and the bloggers realize their position as being potentially read by cast, crew, possible Jericho backers, network executives and the general public at large. They realize this and they realize that anyone on the outside can tell by what is written and the amount of dialogue it provokes whether or not the Blogger enjoys the support of the fandom. I believe that for the most part Jericho bloggers works are seen as less relevant than what someone from the Baltimore sun or other outside source has to say about the show. The irony of my divulging all of this to you is that you are one person who realizes the power of the press and that Jericho bloggers play an important role in that.

The Jericho Junction has not always been fun but I think that is because I have tried to look at it as more than recreation. I have looked at as a job because I wanted the Jericho rangers to know that I take them seriously. I believe what they have accomplished and been through is every bit as real as if it happened to them in the real world. I do not subscribe to the idea that we should be gain perspective by thinking about how silly our conflicts might appear to our friends or family that are not involved in the fandom. I take my job seriously at the junction because I take the people of this fandom seriously; even if I have never met them face to face.

Thanks once again Gwen for caring, sharing and for what you do to bring out the best in this community time and again.

-Barry

Debby said...

Barry I was gone this weekend. I so enjoy reading your blog. It always makes me think and more than just about Jericho. I hope that you continue to write and enjoy the process. Your blog has always contained quality well written entries no matter how many or how few readers there are. Sometimes I think that deeper blogs don't have as much an audience because people seem to want fluff instead of substance. Thank you for providing substance.
Debby from SC

terocious said...

Thank you Debby,
I appreciate all that you have said. I know that you are sincere and I do not mean to belittle your comments. I have never been really good a taking compliments and I assure you I was not trolling for them with my statement about Jericho Bloggers. Rather I was making an observation that I have noticed all along in our campaign but have been afraid to say; that Jericho Bloggers seem more like outsiders than a part of the fandom and yet they do not enjoy the same dialogue with the community as say TV by the numbers or SYFY portal. I think part of the reason is these sites are considered to be a little more legitimate which is worth arguing since Jericho bloggers are merely fans who basically do they same type of things which are done on the message boards every day. The difference is that the Jericho bloggers have for the most part been using their blogs as a method of campaigning for the show. They have attempted to make information readily available about the fandom and Jericho to the outside world. I am the exception as the Junction is more of a junkshop than anything else. Meaning the content on this blog has been all over the board. But over the last few months we have lost mutiple bloggers and to be quite honest I have never seen anything on the boards asking where they all went. My point is that a fandom needs blogs and right now in this one there are not many. The crew at Save Again have jumped in to take up some of the slack so I do not want to sound as though I am forgetting them.

Many things have contributed to these blogs demise so I do not mean to put all the blame on the fandoms shoulders. Rather I am saying to this fandom and any others who are listening that the amount of blogs you have associated with your show is one way of taking the pulse of your fandom. Blogs are a resource I do not think a fandom can afford to lose. Again, I hesitate to say all of this because I am a blogger. But I do feel it is important to say.

Thanks Debby

Debby said...

I mourn the Jericho blogs and feel their loss was one of the worst causilties of all of the infighting in the fandon. I also feel with no new episodes that many bloggers have run out of things to talk about. I admire the tenacity of those who have kept up their blogs.
Debby