Digressive Second Thoughts

For in this long digression which I was accidentally led into, as in all my digressions (one only excepted) there is a master-stroke of digressive skill, the merit of which has all along, I fear, been overlooked by my reader,-not for want of penetration in him-but because 'tis an excellence seldom looked for, or expected indeed, in a digression;-and it is this: That though my digressions are all fair, as you observe, -and that I fly off from what I am about, as far and as often too as any writer in Great Britain; yet I constantly take care to order affairs so, that my main business does not stand still in my absence.

Tristram Shandy - Laurence Sterne

While it was at the top of my head, where there is a reddened bump caused by my neighbor's misplaced rake, I must remember to cling to my "main business" of blogging when blogging. Yet, I am afraid I find that there is no main business to blogging. The structure of blogs is asleep on the job and one is constantly paying no mind to audience because of it's miserable scantiness.  If ever there were a barren form of writing in regards to organization and readership, blogging is it. Were it a diary, which would at least configure the mess into chronology, then my life would be presented in simulcast here. Not only would I merely be reliving moments for exiguous purpose but... take thought. Even though I disguise my time zone as that of the Canary Islands, and even save entries written for days and then post at odd moments of time, even then a schedule might be deciphered and my comings and goings-- by the detail of my writing, such detail being the "main business" -- would be manifestly recorded as if train watching while the entries be shuffled into an inviting puzzle. Any good logician could piece together general happenings given the bare outline of an itinerary, well, adjusted to Canary Island time with mere mathematics.

And were one to inattentively leave one's security system lying about in diligent pursuit of one's main business... well, the danger is well apparent. The Internet is a place of sharing.. and so of unlimited information, and too much detail about how to sling Roundup laced ice cubes onto that jerky neighbor's manicured lawn may just be unproductive though well deserved, yes, well deserved individually. The rake!

Perhaps I need a biographical structure like Sterne. This is not my first mention of this, I am sure... and thus... the need. I will contemplate the idea. A full fledged book with beginning and end ... yet blog backwards. Oh my head.