I listened with interest to this week's programme of In Our Time, all about Don Quixote, and it got me thinking. I have often thought that there is something more than a little quixotic about blogging; the blogosphere is an almost unlimited world for those who want to get out there and seek adventure, fighting for their own version of justice. I am not saying that blogging is necessarily quixotic, but I will argue that Don Quixote de la Mancha, the classic novel by Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, has some relevant things to say to bloggers.
Blogging is quite a recent phenomenon; the immensely popular Blogger software first appeared in 1999, and blogging has only become a mass activity in the last 2-3 years. Up until a few years ago the opportunities to publish writing were relatively limited, and the subjects, style and quality of published writing was regulated by the editors and the economics of the publishing industry. Publishing on paper necessarily limited the number of published writers to a small proportion of the number of readers. The internet and the advent of blogging has removed all of these limits, and consequently all of the frustrated writers who have for years been reading and developing their ideas have been offered an outlet for their creative energies.
The blogger has a lot of freedom to write – and to publish – whatever they fancy. What is the criteria for deciding what to publish and what not to publish? Whatever the individual blogger feels happier about publishing than not publishing; in some cases this may be what they judge to be “good”, or “quality”, in other cases it may motivated by nothing more refined than the desire to mark territory in cyberspace, to say “I was here”. Outside the countries where there is state censorship, unless the material is offensive, illegal or libellous, presently the only system for separating what is good from what is not are the indicators generated by the search engines. Irrespective of how little success they might have in generating interest from the outside world, the motivated blogger can just keep going, writing about more or less whatever they deem to be worthy of their attention. Just like the news media in the holiday season, although there might seem to be nothing really important to write about, something will always appear on the horizon at the right moment.
In any case, the success of a blog is not necessarily measured in how many page views it generates, or whether it attracts a loyal readership from 50 different countries. In some respects a blog can function just like a diary, where the chief beneficiary is the writer – it keeps them happy, it keeps their head in order, it keeps them sane (or serves as an escape valve for their eccentricity). Many diary writers keep writing for years with a readership of one – themselves. The key difference between blogging and diary writing is that bloggers perform in public, for all the blogosphere to see. They want to change some small part of the world with their writing, even though that part might be very small indeed. They are brave enough, or perhaps foolish enough, to publish their thoughts, opinions and creations for all the world to see. Many bloggers (myself included) prefer not to use their real name, using instead an invented name - just like the gentleman from La Mancha.
I suspect that many bloggers read a lot, like Don Quixote, and they have a lot of mental fuel to keep them running. If reading books of chivalry until the small hours made Don Quixote mad, I reckon that excessive time spent in front of a computer screen, working, blogging and surfing the web could make people at least slightly eccentric, especially in the case where most social interactions take place on-line. Blogging gives people the opportunity to get "out there" in cyberspace and do something with their mental energy, to express themselves, to publish their opinions of things and have others publish their opinions about them. Bloggers, like the honourable gentleman from La Mancha, are almost by definition people of leisure who can afford to spend some free time in front of their computer screen, even if this means spending a little less time with friends and family. Probably more than one blogger has felt the efforts of their nearest and dearest, who may have tried to convince them to stop spending so much time in front of their computer!
Adventures in the blogosphere, whilst perhaps not being as physically satisfying as attacking fearful enemies on horseback, do include many of the ingredients of the gentleman from La Mancha's adventures: travelling (in cyberspace), quests, arguments, fights, righting wrongs, encounters with people from different places and backgrounds. Most bloggers have some sense of "honour" that guides their on-line interactions, and whilst they may be prepared to say fairly terrible things about people they dislike or disagree with, they will usually draw the line somewhere.
Another aspect of blogging that reminds me of Cervates' work is the way in which blogs contain different layers of information, reflect the world we live in, and to some extent exert their own influence on the world. In the second part of Don Quixote de la Mancha, many of the people that Don Quixote meets have read the first part of the book (published ten years previously), and already know what to expect. The feedback loops that exist between the blogosphere and the real world operate much quicker than this. On-line interactions and the creative process of writing a blog can result in changes in the blogger's life, which in turn change the course and the content of the blog. Many bloggers are part of on-line communities where news can travel fast and actions can be coordinated rapidly. Using hyperlinks, permalinks, and other tools of the internet, blogs refer to and comment on other blogs, the traditional media, current events, the arts, reports and statistics. Sensitive documents now have many more ways of being leaked than being "accidentally" left on photocopiers. Cervantes' story is told by multiple voices including the author, the translator, and the characters. Blogs are also written with different voices, ranging from the relatively distant voices that comment on things and expound ideas to more intimate voices that tell of personal experiences, thoughts and emotions.
A typical dictionary definition of quixotic describes something that is idealistic and impractical. In this short essay I have described some connections that I see between the adventures of Don Quixote and the activities of bloggers. It could be argued that almost any artistic or idealistic endeavour (particularly that which is not particularly successful, or which is entirely leisurely / voluntary) shares some of these characteristics. Maybe so, maybe that is partly why Cervantes' work has appealed to so many for so long. If Cervantes had lived in the early years of the 21st century, would Don Quixote have been an elderly gentleman blogger, and Rocinante his trusty but dated computer with a dial-up connection to the internet? Who knows. What I am sure of is that while blogging is not necessarily an activity characterised by delusion, impractical ideals and vanity, these pitfalls exist and bloggers should take care to avoid them.
