Ring Around the Rosey – American Version

Ring around the rosey,
A pocketful of posies.
ashes, ashes.
We all fall down.

We would all gather together in a circle, singing this song as you see it above in America.  Then we would go faster and faster and all fall in crazy heaps, laughing, rolling … and getting up to do it again.  You couldn’t spin fast enough at that age to do anything other than make yourself dizzy.  Nausea had no part in it and there was no angle at which you couldn’t throw yourself with no injury whatsoever!

Pure unadulterated bliss!  Until adults became involved … and there went the fun.  Instead, we got the Black Plague …

Ring around the Rosey

One of the first visible signs of infection were red rings surrounding a rosy bump, all over the victim’s body.

Pocket full of Posies

A common belief of the time was that the plague was borne on "foul air." The rationale was that people could protect themselves from the bad air by keeping their local air smelling sweet. That, and it also helped them deal with the smell of death…

On the other hand, another sign of infection was the foul stench that would begin to emanate from the victim’s body as their lymph system began filling with blood. Those still mobile endeavored to mask their stench and avoid detection by carrying flowers on their person.

Ashes, Ashes,

In the terminal phases of the disease, victims would be hemorrhaging internally, sometimes triggering sneezing as it irritated the breathing passages. "Ashes" is a child’s approximation of a paroxysm of sneezing. In this weakened state, a victim could, and often did, sneeze their lungs out. Messy…

We all Fall Down

By now, this one should need little explanation…

Not only woe is me, woe is every stinking one of us!  But, you have to face facts.  That’s what it is to be an adult.  To be a fact facer!

Then along comes another childish bunch with the unlikely name of Snopes!  Sounds like a Peanuts Weasel or something.  They dug further into it.  And further into it.  And still further.

And they found … no connection to the Black Plague.  Or Darth Vadar.  Not even to Dick Cheney.

What they found was that it was basically a nonsense rhyme with a rhythm kids could sing and dance to and flop themselves on the ground.  They even end the piece with an observation by John Lennon that people found all kinds of meanings in the Beatle’s lyrics that the Beatles did not intend.  If they liked the interpretation, they simply remained silent and said that is what they had intended all along.

http://www.snopes.com/language/literary/rosie.asp

So, if you are an adult, perhaps you favor the intensity and gravitas, the meaning within meanings, of the Black Plague interpretation.  Maybe it is your way of explaining the nausea you now feel when you spin around or the aches you experience if you throw yourself on the ground.  I don’t really know.

But, if you are a kid, it is just a song and you dance in a circle and throw yourself on the ground with all the other kids and … you laugh EVERY single time you do it!

Being an anarchist, Ramana caused a stir over at Grannymar’s blog and then had to repair the rift in the universal fabric by doing the piece on Ganesha on his blog.

What is little known is that Ganesha had a little brother – Tony – who traveled to Italy.  Going to Italy, he of course was drafted by the Vatican and given a job.  He became the bearer of the sacramental Chianti, which he transported across the pond to our humble abode in California.

bikehikebabe wondered about the “luv” in CommentLuv that you see at the bottom of comments.  Well, the luv stands for love and that is what anyone in the trenches really feels for others in the trenches.

Let me explain.  Bloggers, just like anyone else undertaking an expressive, fairly public endeavor find that it would be very lonely and unsatisfying without readers.  But, it would also be unsatisfying without fellow bloggers – and that is what CommentLuv was invented to reward.  Many of my readers are fellow bloggers and they understand what it is like trying to express fresh ideas on a regular basis.  Smart ideas are even worse!  When Rhonda or Ramana or Gail or Deb or bhb or Jean or Corky or Viki or Ashok or GL or Marianna or Grannymar… or Curly, Larry or Moe swoop in with a creative comment, the blogger says a combination of two words, YEAH! and WHEW.  It is like the Hebrew name for God and is spelled YWHEW!  and is unpronounceable except when under duress.

Well, bhb, CommentLuv points with luv to the most recent post by that blogger.  It is paying homage to the effort.  Giving a roadmap to one another’s sites.  It is a way of saying thanks for showing up and making a comment.

We all rely on one another to scratch where we can’t reach ourselves.  Like they say, a dinosaur’s or a blogger’s reach must exceed his grasp, else what is a little luv for?

We have an acceleration happening of epic proportions and we are all involved, whether we realize it or not.  We are involved in a massive acceleration of information transmission.  The world is absolutely filled with it, but that isn’t the essence of the revolution that is taking place.  It really isn’t a question of the 500 TV stations you have available in your living room.  It isn’t a question of news online killing the newspapers.  It is a question of the direct involvement of the people all around you in actually influencing the news, instantly exchanging facts – and misinformation – at a rate unprecedented and from anywhere.  ANYWHERE!!  ANYTIME!!

Like all rapid evolutions (revolutions), this one can be looked at more than one way.  It is either a mixture of good and bad – or, it’s neither, it’s just the next step.  Have you seen how quickly kids can text one another?  And, how could they possibly think that is a good idea while they are driving?!  Do you really have to make something that seems that obvious specifically against the law?  Yes, because it is sweeping up a whole generation and they are hot after it.

It isn’t just their generation, though.  Last week there was  a conference in San Francisco, the Inbound Marketing Summit, attended by some very serious people determined to make a whole lot of money off of the developing phenomenon.  I was there, too.  Let me tell you why…

I blog.  You may have noticed that.  I use other Social Media tools, too.  Let me tell you about some of them:

Blog: Web Log originally, thus the name.  It was kind of going to just be people’s online logs, so I suppose Captain Kirk was the original. 

Star Date 2938.6: Sulu was roughed up by drunk Klingons this afternoon.

But, the blog has become much more than that.  It isn’t what I’m doing at the time, although that is an element of it.  It is my own personal op-ed piece.  It is my comment on the world around me.  It is a chance to see some of my family history recorded.  And, it is my chance to share a conversation with friends that I really enjoy.  Kind of like email on steroids.

Twitter: it is usually referred to as micro-blogging these days.  Each statement you make is 140 characters or less.  You send these “Tweets” out to anyone who wants to listen to you.  So you hear about other people and the things they say and that becomes interesting to you, so you FOLLOW them.  After a while, if you aren’t careful, it becomes a competition and no one can quite remember why.  It’s like your ego has a leash and pulls the rest of you around.

Yesterday, at the Summit, 5 guys were speaking in the front of the room on a panel.  Someone Tweeted to everyone that it was 5 white guys explaining the universe.  One of the 5 picked it up on the spot up there, read it and everybody got a good laugh.  Twitter people develop strange senses of humor.

Skype: our family originally began using Skype because it was a way to communicate with our daughter who is at college 500 miles away.  Set up a web cam and microphone – usually the same unit – hook up to a high speed connection on both ends, and you are in business.  It has become very, very good with current technology, in fact.  It is very much like having that Star Trek screen right in front of you and I am thinking of starting each session by saying, “On screen, Uhuru!”

But, and this is key, it turned out to have another use.  The progression went this way:

• First I started blogging.
• Then I hear about Twitter and start Tweeting.
• Then I send a few Tweets to CNN’s Rick Sanchez show while I am eating lunch, with no other purpose than to see if I could get it on the screen.
• They start putting some up, which I think is cool.
• So, they ask me to join a Skype chat.  I am now chatting with a bunch of other people about what is on the show.
• Two of us get to try it live on a show and it becomes this stream.
• Now, those of us in the CNN Chatroom are becoming friends and branching off into other co ventures.

In Christian and fishing terms, this is called casting your bread upon the water.  In the terms one of the white guys gave at the Summit, this is “acting and iterating.”  If something is established, follow good, proven business principles, consider and plan, build a good foundation, then implement.  If it is brand new, there are no good principles, because it hasn’t been done before.  That is when it is time to act and iterate, do it and correct your course as you go.

One of the things about new ventures and ideas: some of them are great and really work out – while others are really bad!  Also, I haven’t even covered other ways to socially network, like Facebook, MySpace, etc.  So, I leave you with three questions:

• Are you trying anything new in your life?
• Is anything really showing promise?
• What have you tried in Social Networking – besides reading this blog post?  And has it yielded anything personally rewarding?

It’s not a generational thing. I use a cup of coffee as the icon to represent my blog specifically because of its tradition as conversational catalyst. As you can see above, younger people at the modern Café Babel in Seattle participate. Older participants at Manistee Bakery & Deli in Manistee, Michigan enjoy it. Starbucks practically recreates living rooms with couches and coffee tables at many outlets. Coffee shops go back further than I do – and I go back further than I ever have before!

So, what’s the attraction? Is it the coffee? Well, in part, but I’ve tasted some pretty rasty coffee at some of the old greasy spoon coffee shops where I’ve spent time with friends – yet we returned. Is it the ambience? Closer. Is it the friendship? Now we’re getting hot! Wait, I’m getting it…it’s the conversation between friends. Sometimes, it’s not coffee at all. Sometimes, it’s beer. Sometimes, it’s tea and sushi. But, it’s always conversation! And, it’s always friends. The long running TV comedy Cheers was fully based on it without ever depleting the topic pool. Seinfeld milked it forever and the meeting place was either Jerry’s apartment or the coffee shop. Friends went to Central Perk.

So, we’ve got two elements essential so far. You need friends and you need a conversation. But, bigger than the elephant in the room is the room itself. You need that traditional meeting place. That’s where the Conversational Blog comes in, a place where people keep returning to converse on different topics, to reminisce about their days and developments of their lives. To reflect. To encourage one another. And, what’s the beverage of choice that everyone sips from? The Blog Post itself. It is the daily special offered by the proprietor. Yet, though every blog has offerings and though many of them are extremely interesting, some of them yield very little conversation. Even some blogs with a huge amount of traffic! Why?

I have some ideas and part of the weight behind them is because there is so much conversation on my blog. I offer fewer ideas about generating traffic, because my traffic counts aren’t very high – though the people that do visit tend to read multiple entries. Also, I have to offer the true humility of a guy who’s only been blogging for two months. But, I get conversation and I think these may be some of the fundamental reasons behind that:

• Daily offerings are a surprise. I don’t know what I’m going to write about any more than the readers.
• I try to always enjoy the writing and have fun. Fun doesn’t preclude serious reflection and thought. Fun doesn’t preclude research. But, fun translates to a light touch, to brightness and to passion!
• I always include a piece of myself in the writing. Note this requirement, because I’ll return to the importance of this shortly.
• After publishing the post, I genuinely look forward to the responses. Some writers don’t invite response and are HUGELY successful, like The Magnificent Bastard and Seth Godin. They are brilliant and I love to read their blogs. I think about their blogs. But…we aren’t conversing. They have so much traffic, I don’t think they could and they don’t even allow comments. They are more like great leaders speaking to the masses and I have huge respect for what they do. It just isn’t what I do.
• When the responses start, I don’t stand behind the counter. I go to the table and sit down with the guests. I drink with them and listen to their stories. And, this is probably the most important part: I respond to each and every comment individually. My responses aren’t sound-bite knockoffs, they are often multiple paragraphs. I respond like I would were we face-to-face over a cup of coffee.

The key to understanding what to respond to is to realize what I learned working with mentally ill children, that every statement a person makes is autobiographical. What they say about my post is only peripherally related to my post. It is a statement of themselves, of their hearts, of their yearnings. So, I do them the justice of listening, absorbing and responding to their individual offering of themselves with myself.

My blog leaves me vulnerable. And, because of that, it leaves me surrounded by friends. I’ll always toast that!

What’s your take? I’m listening…

Some of you are sending me encouragements after my last post, concerned about the state of my mental health.  I wasn’t meaning it as a serious problem that I am experiencing, because nothing could be further from the truth.  I am simply experiencing what every creature on the face of the Earth learns, mainly that time itself often doesn’t work the way we want it to!

Ideally, what I would like to see time do is function to separate events.  Bring Relativity into play and it would become spacetime should separate events.  Instead, what we see is that events are clustered, as though they have a gravitational attraction to one another.  I go for months with very little business activity, so I spend a quite a bit of time developing a blog.  In the meantime, I am becoming more and more broke, of course, but I can sure focus on that blog.

Then, all kinds of business comes in at once.  That is what has happened and we as a family are simply clearing the deck so that Dad can bring home some bacon.  You may see skimpier offerings on this blog because of it.  Or, you may see ballistic blogging, where I just blast in some entries (like this one!), happening while I work on all these projects.  I intend to keep the keyboard warmed up, though.

I have a rainy day fund untapped, though.  On a little voice recorder, I have stored 58 ideas for blog posts.  I won’t have to think for weeks!

Take that, TIME!!!

How does a blogger pick a topic?  Sometimes it is through a positive, disciplined system of thought like Ellen Weber or Robyn McMaster do.  Some are business geniuses like GL Hoffman.  Some are just brilliant, like Seth Godin.  Some find themselves in parts of the world in turmoil, like Ramana Rajgopaul and are honestly trying to make sense out of it.  And some have ready, agile minds like Marianna Paulson or that improvisational, literate mom, Eva, where creativity just seems to flow from some inner fountain.

But, sometimes, any of us are tempted to just go where the world is omitting a foul smell, because we know we’ll find some easy pickings.  We become Culture Vultures, looking for dying meat, an easy meal.  We become tabloid mavens, because you can always get something from a politician or a celebrity.  We hunt disasters.  We seek miscues.  We hunger for a mistake, any mistake.

Why?  We like to be read.  There are metrics applied to our blogs.  Status becomes something that can be measured, something that can be competed for.  They give us page ranks and traffic counts.  Other bloggers link to us.  We are on stage and it is exhilarating.  It is hard to not apply that metric to self worth.

We also exhibit predatory instincts.  One of my favorite cartoons that I was searching for shows two vultures on a limb, kind of like our three buddies up above, and one says to the other, “Patience be damned.  I’m going to kill something!”  We go on Twitter and say provocative things.  We try to build a following.  We are, to some extent, entertainers.

While this is to some extent a confessional piece, I have at my core some better instincts than that.  We all do.  Candor about life as it presents itself to us must become a calling, honesty without regard to results an ethical mantra.  Writing something well must become reward enough.  How many great pieces are being written out there that we never see because it wasn’t promoted?  How many great pieces out there are great because the person wasn’t a promoter, but first and foremost a writer?

So, folks, who have you discovered out there that has some fine insights but little promotional concern?  What great blogs do you know of that you can bring to the table, vital blogs, exciting blogs written by modest people?  I’d really like to know.

Picture: from blogs.mysanantonio.com

I encourage you to check out Ramana’s Musings from the ground over there at http://rummuser.com/.  What I like about Ramana Rajgopaul’s writings is his maturity and his willingness to reconsider each of his views.  I do not believe him to be an ideologue.