Blogging Kafka
September 25,2005
Blogging on the internet reminds me of Kafka's Imperial Message: the emperor of all the vast kingdoms of the earth is lying on his deathbed. With his dying breath he calls his courier to his side and whispers a message in his ear....a message meant for you......you, the farthest flung of all the empire's millions of anonymous subjects, you, the most insignificant speck on the map of the empire......the Emperor expends his dying breath on a message intended for .....you.
And now the messenger sets out to deliver the message....to you.He pushes his way through the throngs that are gathered in the castle and in the courtyard, he finds his way into the street and then into the village, finally onto a country road and hence on to the next village, pushing through that village and on to the next. In village after village he prods his way through the crowds. And that is only the one province. There are countless other villages in countless other provinces. And if he makes it to the end of the last village in the last province then he must cross the ocean to other countries and into other provinces. Everywhere he goes the masses hold him back, the weather, the threat of highwaymen. Still he plods on with his message. If he had ten lifetimes to pursue his mission he could not find you wherever you might be in the hinterland of millions. It's plain that he can never reach you with the message. And yet, as Kafka says, you sit by your window and wait.
Blogging on the internet is similar to that. You write your message. You think it has a special meaning that people will be interested in reading. You send it out over the airwaves. And you wait for something to happen. But the internet is vast and anonymous. Surfing the blogosphere page after page you find not a single soul mate and if you surfed a lifetime day and night you would only make a tiny scratch on the surface of the internet. Your literary efforts are like those audio sounds that scientists beam into space in search of signs of life. The audio signals disappear into the void and no one can be sure whether they're heard. Yet still you continue to form the words and put the message out no matter what. It's the perfect example of hope springing eternal in the human breast.
Blogging on the internet reminds me of Kafka's Imperial Message: the emperor of all the vast kingdoms of the earth is lying on his deathbed. With his dying breath he calls his courier to his side and whispers a message in his ear....a message meant for you......you, the farthest flung of all the empire's millions of anonymous subjects, you, the most insignificant speck on the map of the empire......the Emperor expends his dying breath on a message intended for .....you.
And now the messenger sets out to deliver the message....to you.He pushes his way through the throngs that are gathered in the castle and in the courtyard, he finds his way into the street and then into the village, finally onto a country road and hence on to the next village, pushing through that village and on to the next. In village after village he prods his way through the crowds. And that is only the one province. There are countless other villages in countless other provinces. And if he makes it to the end of the last village in the last province then he must cross the ocean to other countries and into other provinces. Everywhere he goes the masses hold him back, the weather, the threat of highwaymen. Still he plods on with his message. If he had ten lifetimes to pursue his mission he could not find you wherever you might be in the hinterland of millions. It's plain that he can never reach you with the message. And yet, as Kafka says, you sit by your window and wait.
Blogging on the internet is similar to that. You write your message. You think it has a special meaning that people will be interested in reading. You send it out over the airwaves. And you wait for something to happen. But the internet is vast and anonymous. Surfing the blogosphere page after page you find not a single soul mate and if you surfed a lifetime day and night you would only make a tiny scratch on the surface of the internet. Your literary efforts are like those audio sounds that scientists beam into space in search of signs of life. The audio signals disappear into the void and no one can be sure whether they're heard. Yet still you continue to form the words and put the message out no matter what. It's the perfect example of hope springing eternal in the human breast.
posted by nagg at 10:26 AM
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