Multitudes

The commons is the incarnation, the production, and the liberation of the multitude
(Hardt/Negri, Empire, 2001: 302-303).

I've always rejected out-of-hand, the cooptive, trite formulas of the business and self-help literatures. After all, these types of knowledge are about making money, about repackaging ideas as "new" or as "secrets revealed," and about helping people to better mold themselves into the consumer-corporate ideals of body and profession. With these books in hand, one can aspire to have a body like Barbie, money like Donald Trump, and a marriage like Ronald & Nancy Reagan. So it is with a slight sense of self-disgust that I admit that these genres do, in fact, have something to offer the rest of us.

One clear finding from these literatures: it seems well-established that a.) goal setting is an important part of achieving one's desires, and b.) that stating such goals publicly can help to actualize these hopes. It comes as little surprise then that the blog has emerged as a site for making bodily goals come true. And thus we enter the age of the public diet.

Grudgingly, I must admit that I too could benefit from such public scrutiny. And even if obesity isn't my own bete noire, I certainly have my own vices, and failed diets of other kinds. So, without further ado, I'll begin this blog. (I know--another cliche from the likes of the self-help crew: the obligatory blog announcing the launch of the blog.)

Do I contradict myself?
Very well then I contradict myself,
(I am large, I contain multitudes.)
--Walt Whitman, "Song of Myself"

This blog will publicly track my own attempts to write, to make a career for myself, and to fulfill the dormant talents lurking within. I will, in this blog, tell the public sphere of my achievements and failings, and use you--the sphere--to discipline me and encourage me. The results, my dear sphere, will astonish you. You cannot begin to imagine the storehouse of ideas that is me. But that is for me to show you.