Feb
5
2010
Airport Bloggers
Author: BoompoetI hear quite a lot that travel, specifically the travel I do from coast to coast, is interesting and exotic. While I do get to do things others admire and go to places I have not been, the actual travel part of the gig is just a way to get from point A to point B. When I first started out, I complained under my breath each time the security checkpoint stopped me because of all of the gadgetry in my bag. I then progressed to a point where I was no longer annoyed and just moved through like one of the cattle. That’s what we become… cattle. We accept our lot and move through with no complaint.
Once the cattle phase was firmly in play, I started to take the energy that I had used to complain to myself about all manner of things and put it towards observation. It takes a fare amount of energy to notice little things about your environment and the other cattle around you. Looking and seeing are not the same as observing. Observing is a science… it can be a penetrative act or it can be a subtle and reverent affair. One of the things I noticed were all the laptop users of which, at first, I was not one. I did not see the point of whipping out a large and unwieldy hunk of tech just to check my email… that’s not what they were doing. These people… were blogging.
I am an intermittent blogger. When I blog, it’s usually from a dark room somewhere strange and away from the prying eyes of the world. It’s safer to unleash my usually frantic ravings from the privacy of somewhere a little dank and cave-like. It’s almost as though I am expecting someone to stop by and sell me some exotic drug or to purchase pirated software (I don’t do drugs and I don’t sell pirated software, just painting a picture). These people publicly pouring out their deepest thoughts, thoughts that could not wait to be shared, thoughts the world has to be made aware of, became something brave in my mind… something to aspire to. Then I read one of these blogs, the last bastions of free expressions. It was nothing I expected.
I was sitting at a counter by my gate and noticed over the shoulder of the woman in front of me the title of her blog… the name escapes me at present. I immediately produced my hunk of technology and connected. I eagerly anticipated reading of her trials, her overcoming adversity, her deeply personal and probably anonymous statements of truth that would touch my soul and induce tears to fall. It was a cookie recipe. Much like the hidden track on that Tool album that sounds like something from a Nazi youth rally, it was a simple cookie recipe that she wanted to share with her readership. Could that not have waited? Why was this worthy of the spektical that hyper observant people were being subjected to?
I wanted more. I began to wander around the terminal (I had a long layover) and I found more bloggers and more disappointment. “See the pictures of the car I bought?” and “I’m so sick of having to sit by fat people on planes…” and “I thought I might die if she bought the same scarf I was looking at.”. Drivel! Heresy! How very dare they? How dare I? I was the one spying and skulking around looking for… well, I don’t know what I was looking for. I felt guilty for judging people who were just doing nothing more than sharing… much as I did from my dark corners and mysterious hotel rooms. These people with their new cars, scarf purchases, and hatred for fatties (like myself I might add… not a small fella here) were simply taking it to the streets. Their drivel is revolutionary, I began to realize.
I decided, this time, to write in the open. This was written from an airport terminal in Saint Louis Missouri. I am now the douche who blogs from the airport. How do I feel about that? Do I feel like a revolutionary? Do I feel like I sharing something more important than usual? Do I feel my expression is vindicated? No. I’m just another terminal blogger. How dare I?
I’m going back to the cave.
