Showing posts with label blogging. Show all posts
Showing posts with label blogging. Show all posts

Monday, February 6, 2012

Social networking blog sites the Written Word Power

Social Networking Blog Sites: The Power of the Written Word
They say that the pen is mightier than the sword. Indeed, this is true for where a sword can move a physical body, the pen can move the very soul of a nation.
People have been fascinated by literature for centuries. Literature is the stuff of life. Words can move us as no physical object can.
The recent explosion of social networking blog sites all over the internet has truly shown us how much value we put in words. With words, we express ourselves. Sometimes, people think that words truly form the bond between two persons. Words are the sole media by which we can relate to others our experience.
True, some may argue that sometimes words are not enough to contain the enormity of an experience.
However, words are the closest way we have of sharing our experience. Words can describe accurately our pain, our joy, our sorrow and all other parts of the human experience of emotion.
Social networking blog sites are used by many people for self-expression. They use social networking blog sites as outlets for the emotions they chain up within them.
In a way, words give us the freedom we cannot enjoy within the society of man.
The written word has an impact altogether different from the spoken word. Somehow, written words seem more pristine, unmarred by the voice and accentuation of a speaker. Written words, like those found in social networking blog sites, are open to the interpretation of the person who reads them.
This way, each selection of written words holds a meaning unique to the person who beholds it.
People use social networking blog sites to bring a specific meaning to the world. They use social networking blog sites in order to tell the world I am this. They declare to the world their personal messages in a voice that cannot be silenced by any man.
A social networking blog site can act as a training ground for aspiring writers. These young writers do not write for money or for fame, but to let out the personality that is waiting to be released.
They write in social networking blog sites because they feel they need to. They do this in order to let the whole world know that they will not be silenced. They will write and write until they can write no more.
Although social networking blog sites can serve as catalysts to build bridges between strangers, the main object of these sites is to open each person up to the experiences of another.
Social networking blog sites help you meet people while expressing yourself and looking at the self-expression of other people. This helps you connect with them in a way that is more profound than any other method can provide.
Social networking blog sites let you connect with different people through their writing. They allow you inside different persons’ musings, they let you join a soldier on the battlefield, and they let you keep track of a person’s experience regarding a calamity on the other side of the world. They make things more real to your perception.
Social networking blog sites may serve as meeting grounds, but it is better as a place where you can get a glimpse of the human soul, for that is what writers reveal in their words.

Sunday, January 22, 2012

The most bully pulpit on earth — your blog, and how to use it to make a difference.

Author’s program note. Have you ever felt that the problems of our muddled planet are too much for you… that you’d like your brief span on our bit of terra firma to matter… but can’t imagine how to get started? In short, have you despaired… about your power, your abilities, your significance… about the future of our 3rd rock from the Sun… about making a difference that will last and make you proud?
Let me tell you this, fellow pilgrim, every single good person on Spaceship Earth has these thoughts; you wouldn’t be the sentient soul you are if you didn’t burn the midnight oil pondering these great questions of our species and its impact.
If you truly want to make that vital difference, then you will read this timely article and read it again… because it makes clear and in necessary detail just what awe-inspiring power you have at your immediate disposal… and how to use it, over and over again, with ever growing experience and impact; a power that no Caesar ever had… no grave thinker… no nimble statesman… no dedicated man or woman of any kind (no matter how bold and innovative)… until the Internet came along and gave you — you — the power to change… to motivate… to chide… to encourage … to uplift… to censure… to rethink and to re-examine… to educate… to cherish… to bring kindred spirits together… and lighten their labors whilst singing their praises.
You — you — wherever you are on this fast-spinning sphere, can alter the course of events, scrutinize and reshape the present, transform the future, enhance anything, enrich everything, place nefarious and heinous deeds under the most stark and unremitting light… whilst bringing to widespread public notice good thoughts, good deeds, good actions of every kind from every quarter and source.
All this and more is inherent in what we call a blog…and you have trod this world at just the right time… a time every reformer, redeemer, and revolutionary of the past envies you — you — for you possess what they could never even dream of whatever their station, intellect, or influence.
Commit.
First, commit and re-commit yourself to making a difference…not merely thinking of doing so, but actually pledging yourself to do so. When I was a young man thinking often about and baffled by my future, my mother offered me a salient piece of advice I have not only recalled from time to time… but crafted my life by: commit yourself, she said, to a cause that’s bigger than you are, a cause that will need every skill you may master and all your imagination, energy, and the full measure of your heart, above all your heart.
This is a worthy objective for a life… though it never ceases to challenge and make demands which can sometimes seem too great, too exhausting, too strenuous. However, you will never know who you are unless you set such a rigorous pace and objective; for the grand goal and how you handle it make clear beyond question and cavil who you are…
Just one little candle.
Every great deed, every worthy thought, every beneficial action of every kind has begun with one step. Instead of being oppressed by all there is to do, instead be glad and comforted by the fact that you have the power now to begin… for as we say in New England, “well begun is half done.”
Begin by saying, writing down and carrying with you at all times, the first four lines from the song “One Little Candle”. You can find it in any search engine.
“It is better to light just one little candle Than to stumble in the dark Better far that you light just one little candle, All you need is a tiny spark.”
(Music George Mysels, Lyrics Joseph Maloy Roach. Published 1952.)
Bully pulpit, not cliche, dross, drivel.
The term bully pulpit was coined by President Theodore Roosevelt, who referred to the White House as a powerful platform for advocating a progressive agenda. In his day only presidents and other holders of high offices had this power… but that is true no longer. You — you — have at your immediate disposal powers and the potential for change, influence, and impact greater even than the man who coined the phrase and used it to effect the broadest possible results.
Unfortunately, some blog publishers are unclear on their mission and thus regularly publish material that is second-rate, old-hat, badly written, verbiage that would be better trashed than recycled through endless editions. Instead be clear on this: the material you publish must be worthy of a blog’s potential and your ability to live up to it. That is every word, every sentence, every paragraph, every page must adhere to the highest possible standards, or else the whole enterprise is pointless, derisory, infra dig. And that result will never do… nor will it help you reach your goal of influencing the maximum number of people on this planet and so effecting meaningful change.
Celebrate, sustain, advance the underdog.
People of power, means, access, influence and position have absolutely no need for your services. They already occupy every significant place on Earth and the benefits and emoluments pertaining thereunto. Your task, to be worth the doing, must be to be clear on what you should be doing… who you should be supporting… and who scrutinizing and holding accountable. In other words, the best use of your blog is to support the underdog in any and every way at your empowered disposal. The world is full of the dispossessed, the disenfranchised, the desperate, the down trodden, the disappeared, the destitute. They are legion as are their stories of alienation, injustice, abuse; all too often thrust aside, deferred, buried, belittled, unregarded, distorted, dismissed.
Which is where you, your commitment, your blog, that bully pulpit, come in. In a world of such unending outrages, your task is clear and crucial, for all there will be days when it seems overwhelming.
Remember this, to have the power to effect good and to fail to use it regularly, pointedly, thoroughly is not merely an error, but dereliction, sacrilege, incomprehensible, immoral.
Thus, vow to set your blog on the path of unremitting reform. It will demand everything you’ve got with results unpredictable and never final. But this is God’s work… and so it must be done… and why not by you and the blog that can touch and transform all? For, after all, you yourself are the one little candle that must be lit, that you may stand out in bold radiance, a beacon of hope for all the world and all who need you so.
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NEGU! An appreciation for the brief life and universal impact of Jessica Joy Rees, blogger, dead at 12, January 6, 2012.

Author’s program note. In 1970 Erich Segal began his international best seller “Love Story” with this line: “What can you say about a twenty-five-year-old girl who died?” The world shed copious, cleansing tears to find out. It was fiction in the cinemascope manner.
But my story is not fiction, it is fact, and answers this question: “What can you say about a twelve-year-old girl who died”? Plenty! And every word of it uplifting! Courageous! Inspirational!
For this is the story of Jessica Joy Rees, now taken from the world which valued her and rooted for her every minute, every single minute, of her too brief life.
And for this story, I have selected a bouncy tune from “Annie” the 1977 Broadway musical based on the popular Harold Gray comic strip; music by Charles Strouse, lyrics by Martin Charnin, and the book by Thomas Meehan. The particular tune I have selected is, of course, “Tomorrow”, a song of such unfettered, irresistible hope that we can easily imagine it bears the sure and certain touch of God Himself, who we are assured calls all such innocents unto Himself, the better to traverse eternity in love and security.
About Jessica.
While other 12-year-old girls were texting friends with the latest gossip, fashion tips, and, of course, pivotal intelligence worthy of the CIA about boyz, Jessica Joy Rees, for all that she wasn’t even a teen-ager, had far weightier things on her young mind. This Rancho Santa Margarita, California lass was wresting with the great questions of human life, riddles and perplexities even the most insightful approach with awe, trepidation and humility:
Who am I? Why am I here? Why am I who has hurt no one so afflicted?
Why me, O Lord, why me?
In her world of hurt, surrounded by adults who all wished to help, there were no sure answers to these questions… and so this slight 12-year-old girl, in constant, increasing pain, amidst a plethora of confusions and bafflements, braved her present struggle and the unknown future with an incandescent smile so radiant it might illuminate all the ages to come. And so this slip of a girl, so very young, came to know, far too soon, that the answers to these queries are in each of us… if only you look. And this young girl did look.. and found comfort aplenty, not just for herself but for the many others wresting with these great queries, as she was. Thus did Jessica Joy Rees, of just 12 winters, find her path, to care, to be a friend, to give solace, to share love… and above all to “NEVER EVER GIVE UP”, NEGU, the profound acronym that became her defiant, empowering, world-famous online sign off code and raison d’etre.
It was a sentiment that came to define the girl, why she was here, and what she could do… and would do… for all that she was only a seventh-grader.
Cancer.
In the ideal world of our imagining — but sadly not in ours — no 12-year-old child would come to define her world and entire existence by disease, any disease. But while our politicians posture and pose, engaging in endless forays into the trivial and insignificant, thousands of these children sicken daily; governments like ours of the Great Republic preferring the creation and use of deadly weapons to sure victories over and complete eradication of deadly disease.
For these people, who waste every resource and cannot see the error of their costly, misguided, pointless ways, Jessica Joy Rees came as an unanswerable, challenging, and completely clear voice: for thousands of years Mankind has chosen war, mayhem, chaos and misery over the healing arts and sciences. Is it not time, honorable citizens, to try a different approach, raising the banner of health… not that of enmity, catastrophe, hatred, and destruction? Will you not join those who improve, protect and affirm life… instead of those who destroy it?
Jessica’s blog.
Jessica, who should have been hanging at the mall and eviscerating the miscues and misconstructions of fashionistas, had instead a very different agenda, an agenda that would have challenged most any adult, but which to this child was child’s play indeed. Time, fleeting for us all, racing even faster for young Jessica, had its urgent necessities… and so while she did what physicians advised in order to extend life, she lived what little she had, day by day, hour by hour, outreach by outreach, idea by idea, empathy by empathy… making progress and igniting the world as her few days dwindled.
With a wisdom far in advance of her years, Jessica set up a blog… a blog where she shared the considerable insights, knowledges and realizations of her situation; transforming mere personal history into a wealth of useful information for others who shared similar burdens or worse… people who found comfort and some peace, too… in the postings as good, weighty and true as those of Anne Frank. Jessica was empathy pure and simple… empathy graced by the smile of recognition, insight, and comfort; and a work ethic all her own.
With the bittersweet assistance of her father, Pastor Erik Rees, she started a foundation to raise money for pediatric cancer research, again reaching beyond herself for the amelioration of others.
Too, she devised “Joy Jars”. Buyers got a t-shirt and filled them with “Joy” for others. These proceeds also went for research which would, she knew, find a cure… but too late for her. That did not signify, did not depress, or dismay her. Her work was to do; others would come, she was sure, to complete her important tasks.
And so a gallant girl, who might so reasonably and justifiably have chosen a very different course for her short time with us, chose instead to use what she had, and in such ample measure, to touch, improve, uplift and soothe the lives of the multitudes, from every corner of Earth, who benefited and will benefit from what she did… and will never forget Jessica Joy Rees, her struggle, her care, her kindness and the humanity which defined her, every day of her life. And this was why at her death, tens of thousands gathered at her Facebook site, gathering for far more than to mark her demise; rather celebrating the heroine and inspiration she was and would always remain. Ashes to ashes. Dust to dust. Amen.
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