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Monday, February 02, 2009

A Note On Symbols

"APPLE"
or
Upon consideration, I think symbols, such as language symbols, hardly ever occur as simple atoms, such as "apple". I guess I disagree with Wittgenstein, and agree more with Whitehead.

5 comments:

Unknown said...

It's statements like your last one here that probably limit your readership. :-)

My daughter blogs (http://reaskroicowl.blogspot.com/), and it just pisses me off that she has 17--17(!)--followers. I try not to be highbrow and try to restrain my disgust, anger, disbelief, scorn for the latest stupid thing. But, sigh, I fail more often than I succeed. So I figure the only reason I have but one follower (my daughter reciprocating) is that people have decided they can do without my carping and griping. (Bigger sigh.)

Montag said...

Don't worry about it. I did not even know about a list of "followers" until about 1 month ago.

Not only that, since my poetry-fasting blog has gained a follower, now I feel compelled to actually work at it! No more tossing off a stanza or two! Farewell the old days of "sweet do nothing"!

I started to blog not to be heard by anyone , but to leave a public record for my daughter; to leave a public display that I, her father, did not in any way agree with what was going on.
I wanted HER to know that I condemned this disaster: moral catastrophe, political catastrophe, economic catastrophe.....

Even now, on the TODAY show, a wise gal is explaining economics by saying, "We all lived on credit, we all consumed and did not save..."

This is when I really get mad. It was not all of us. Not all of us were fools.

And...

...if people do not wish to read or listen to the opinions of those who were not fools, let them listen to the everlasting fools!!!

Unknown said...

A lot of what you say resonates with me. I have 3 kids and yes, these jottings will be a great record of my career of protest against mass idiocy for them. And yes, I started to blog with the idea that this would be an outlet for me only.

I should take your more philosophical approach to this matter of being read or not. Actually, I know of at least one or two people not family who read me regularly. So perhaps I should just savor the small blessings.

My goal this year is to get at least one of my poems published. I've been working at it since about 2002, and I have a bunch of poems. Some of them, I'm told, actually have some merit.

Reading the Signs said...

Some of us are looking in but not always commenting - just saying.

Montag said...

Signs! You startled me. I did not know you were here. Welcome.

...if 1 person likes to read you, a million will;
...if 1 person loves you, a million may discover that amiable part of you.

Sometimes I find it hard to remember that having even just 1 reader imposes a great responsibility.

I have said before that the reason I do not have some sort of device to calculate visits to the site is:
(a) if no one comes, I would be disheartened, and (b) if a lot of people came, I would be arrogant and full of my own importance.

To me, it looks like a lose-lose situation.

When I was very young, writing was like joyful promiscuity.

Now that I am older and wiser, I think writing is more like a long term commitment - like a devoted marriage.