What Really Matters? No, Really...

The extrinsic benefit discussion is hardly unique to music and musicians; rather, it seems that virtually every field of endeavor is falling all over itself to claim utility outside of its own domain. Some of these claims clearly have legs (as in youth sports programs fighting childhood obesity), others less so (as in youth sports programs teaching teamwork; seriously, did anyone learn anything other than nepotism, selfishness and nihilism on their pee-wee baseball team?). Either way, however, I do wonder sometimes if "what really matters" has not become a permanently moving target, forbidden as we so often are these days, whether by culture, politics, or finances, from being so bold as to locate anything in particular at the top of this food chain.

Without such an anchor, the result is an endless cycle of faux-altruism and self-denial. Science fiction "encourage[s] people to think about our world and what it might become?" Or does it offer them escape from these thoughts? Public radio is the "backbone" of our emergency alert systems? The thought of a major disaster leaving behind only the most devoted Current listeners to take the reins of human civilization is more frightening than the specter of such a disaster itself. And consider golf, the game most widely proclaimed to teach honesty which nonetheless makes a cheater of virtually everyone who goes near it.

I worry that in trying so hard to paper over the inherently self-interested nature of every human thought and action we threaten to maim our culture beyond recognition. There is a self-fulfilling, self-destructive aspect to all of this posturing, namely that by insisting on the primacy of our utility to a slippery, calculated conception of universal value over more idealistic concerns specific to our disciplines, we more or less prevent our work and ourselves from blossoming into something with clear intrinsic value. And to be sure, extrinsic values are always derived from intrinsic ones, period. The "anchor" is a constellation, not a monolith. Skimming the cream means severing the limb, and reverse engineering is playing with fire.

...and what a pantheon it is

Someone named Clara at a place called Wikio has contacted me twice within the past couple of weeks to inform me that this blog has attained a ranking of 43rd in the classical music category. I can't figure out if the site offers any way to compare blogs in different categories, but I have to think that 43rd in classical music must be the equivalent of about 10,000th in "Entertainment" or "Politics." If they ever add a "Pan-Stylistic Musico-Philosophical Ramblings" category, I'm sure I'll jump right to the top of that, but I'm not holding my breath.

Though I continue to cling to it as if out of total ignorance, I'm fully aware that my quest to establish an egoless and altruistic blog persona is an overly idealistic proposition if there ever was one. Even so, I could not in good conscience accept the invitation to add a Wikio badge to the sidebar proclaiming my status. I'd much prefer that the reputation of this document be made or unmade by its content. I also think those things are just plain tacky, a tad bit too smug for my taste, and in the case of this particular category and ranking, not necessarily guaranteed to work to your advantage, kind of like advertising the fact that you're the 205,957th coolest person in the Twin Cities.

I suppose this means I'm no longer allowed to lament my small readership, complain about the paucity of comments, or wonder aloud how blogs which seem to me to have no clear identity or focus could be more popular than mine. I could do more to shove this blog in people's faces, but I just don't believe in doing that (and not in music, either). I certainly don't believe in leaving comments on other people's blogs simply to promote my own. That's not only self-serving but downright destructive. Obviously, it's not like I want to hide the blog from people, and I do wonder what the chances are of the random person who goes looking for something just like this actually finding it. You have to have more free time and patience than most anyone has in order to successfully navigate the blogosphere without a compass. In that way, I wonder if the rankings, the blogrolls, and the perfuctory back patting aren't worth something, if not just a little tiny bit. I still don't want the badge, though, and as best I can tell, I won't lose my ranking by turning it down.

It also occurred to me during this time that in a moment of vulnerability, I once tacked a "followers" list onto the sidebar. I'm thankful for the 8 of them, but using them for marketing purposes runs contrary to the M.O. around here, so away it goes. It's not entirely for the same reason that I'm seriously considering abandoning the Postroll as well. I still dig the concept, but I have not invested enough in it for it to work. As such, most of the posts listed were written or originally linked to by the same few bloggers. I envisioned it being a more diverse collection of posts from a wider variety of sources. Those sources, I'm sad to say, have largely failed to materialize, and while I still find time to investigate a few new blogs from time to time, I haven't stumbled on a new "favorite" music blogger for quite some time. If only I could simply hide it without straight up deleting it. I can't seem to figure out if there's a way to do that, which means there probably isn't. That way I could keep open the option of returning to it in the future without merely starting over.

That brings us to one more thing I could do if I really wanted to be a real blogger, and that would be to move to a real platform. The estimable Kris Tiner recently did just that (read his explanation here), with seriously bad ass results. Once again, though, I find myself espousing some lofty conceit of purity, thinking to myself instead that imposing generic templates renders templates moot and allows the document to succeed or fail based on its content rather than its slick packaging. That would work if everyone operated under those restrictions. More likely, though, I'm just shooting myself in the foot.