As a blogger, I read quite a lot of other people's blogs. As an author, I read lot of other people's books. As a musician and guitarist, of course, the same applies. Isn't that how we learn and how we get new ideas or perhaps even opposing ones? When you're half awake, maybe sipping on your first cup of joe and reading someone else's blog, the first thing that needs to be embedded into your noggin is that blogs are simply opinions or facts taken from
other sources. I have seen so many people get riled up over activists' posts and articles that are written to do just that --- stir the pot. While taking everything with a grain of salt, we sometimes fall under a 'thought-to-be' personal attack that we think is either uncalled for or unnecessary. Simple "X" out and move on. Read it like a bad article in the newspaper. No nasty comments can be thrown at the author. But people want their voice to be heard. And why not? They want their opposing opinions to whiplash the offending writer. And sometimes, yes, your opinion on their website can make a difference or persuade someone else's opinion, but most of the time, it's only validating your point of view to be
...right. Everybody wants to be seen as "right", and that's perfectly normal. These days, nobody wants to read more than 140 characters and dare I even say, finish reading someone's blog post unless they are sincerely and truly interested in that person's opinion. We're all microblogging because we can't concentrate on one thing for more than five seconds at a time. We can click a "like" button to let a friend know that we love their new profile pic. We can write a short comment letting others know our opinion or how we thought a particular post was sort of funny. We made a shortcut to reading, and sadly...writing. We hardly even talk to one another anymore. We text - and isn't
that ironic? But, truth be told, texting is much simpler - a short and sweet response to something you don't wish to elaborate on. Who wants to have an entire conversation especially with the awkward moment of trying to get off the phone with someone? Nobody. And let's face it, some people just don't know how to end a phone call. One rule about phone calls? Once you hear somebody sing,
"Okayyyy", time to let them go. NOW. But we don't. We have just one more thing to say.
Remember when photography was one of the great commodities in this world? A professional photo taken by a 35 mm camera which used the good ol' obsolete film with no photoshop available was one of the hardest hobbies and careers to master. I remember when I was working for a nearby art gallery. We were having an exhibit one evening for local photographers who were showing their work. It was a transitioning time when the digital cameras were emerging, and the world of film lovers were outraged by the simplicities of their methods used. It was no longer a "hard career" or a "crafted hobby". Anybody can do it now. The film people were stubborn, never letting go of their strips of film or developing their own masterpieces. It took the fun out of photography for them. "Photoshopping" back in the day meant distorting your images in water with a piece of paper -
real work involved. Now, anyone can snap a picture on their iPhone, use one of their filters to distort or enhance their images, and voila --- instant professional photographer. But to 'real photographers', they know
good photography -
real photography - and if you have an eye for good photography -- you'll definitely know the difference. Sure, the Instagram age is kinda cool and it suffices when you want to share that delicious cup of coffee or that amazing sunrise when you don't have a 35 mm film camera around, but once you compare a professional photo against an Instagram photo, there's no comparison. Just like a tweet vs. a blog post. Simple vs. elaborate. I admit, I've come to limit my professional photos to Instagram due to convenience and I also use Youtube as a platform to become a so called "filmmaker". It makes it easier. I can even edit a short film on my iPhone. How much simpler can it get? Granted, it's not as good, but when do we start calling ourselves professionals if we have technology to do all the legwork for us? What do you think?
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For more of Deb's articles, please visit: www.debrapasquella.com or join her on Facebook and Twitter. Check out her cooking blog for some of her famous recipes!
