I've been thinking about my love/hate relationship with this blog, its comments section, writing, and Zen in general. As so many nice people have kindly pointed out, the quality of writing on this here blog is not up to the standard of my books or Suicide Girls articles. And to that I say, d'uh!. And possibly even, no shit Sherlock.
The whole point of blogging is that it's spontaneous, immediate, uncensored and largely unedited. Plus I don't get paid for writing this stuff, which gives me even less reason to sit and labor over it for hours and days and weeks and months like I do over books and pieces for Suicide Girls and other paying customers. I often write this stuff here as a kind of warm-up for writing "better" stuff later. It's funny how writing works almost like exercise in that way.
Anyhow, take the comments section. Please! At first I was really jazzed about it because of the promise of immediate feedback for my writing. Then when I started reading the comments it got really depressing because even a lot of the nice people seemed not to be really getting what I was trying to put across. Then there were the trolls. And by "trolls" I'm not simply referring just to people who question or challenge what I say. That's fine. I like that. I'm talking about people who are deliberately trying to be hurtful and mean. If you've ever clicked on the comments section here you know exactly what kind of responses I'm talking about and exactly which ones I'm not talking about. But click down there right now and I can guarantee you some troll is pretending he doesn't.
Whatever.
It's let me know that real communication is a very rare thing. Possibly one of the rarest things in this world. We talk and talk and talk at each other. We write mountains of words. I was in a Jewish bookstore on Fairfax with Ben yesterday marveling at hundred and hundreds of books I'd never even suspected existed. Yet here were all these words trying desperately to mean something to someone. Just like all the Buddhist books at Bodhi Tree bookstore over on Melrose Avenue. But it's so seldom anything really penetrates that when some random thing does get through it seems like a miracle.
Which is why I'm fed up with providing Zentertainment. Zentertainment is Zen as entertainment. It's when you stand up in front of a bunch of people and make Zen noises at them and they look up at you and go, "Oooh" and "Ahhh" in response. I talked about Dharma talks last time. And afterwards I started wondering where this phrase "Dharma talk" even originated. It's certainly not a phrase I ever heard used by either of my teachers. I can't say I've even once heard a "Dharma talk" by either Tim or Nishijima. And yet I've gotten all warped and corrupted by the corporate Zen world and have been trying the last few years to deliver the foul things.
But I don't feel like I'm communicating anything at all when I get into that mode. It satisfies the punters. But it does nothing for me. And, seriously, I don't think it does anything good for the audience either. It just gives them fantasies. And if I want to give people fantasies I'd rather give them fantasies about monsters and flying saucers than about Enlightened Beings and The Great Dharma.
Which doesn't mean I'm going to stop trying to communicate. As Katagiri Roshi said, "You have to say something." So I'm gonna keep on saying things. But it's gotta be more real than it's been lately.
Anyway, that's just some random unedited bullshit I'm throwing out to you before I have to go find things to keep my nephew from bouncing off the walls for the rest of the day.
See ya!
