The Neverending Passion

So, Joel is whinging about the fact that I didn't link to him in my summary about The Passion of the Christ. Here, here and here are all the links I found from Joel. Are you happy now? (Just teasing, Joel, I do in fact love your blogs.) Actually, I inadvertently lied in the tag board when I said I hadn't read Joel's posts before I wrote the post below; the first of those links was one of the first things I read about the Passion, and it impressed me, in places, to the point where it set me out (the next day) searching to see what the blogosphere in general was saying and thinking. So why didn't I post about Joel's article at first? Well, two reasons. One, it was late at night when I read it and I was just too tired. This often happens, either late at night or in the middle of a busy day at work, that I read a really provocative post (in the sense of provoking deep thoughts, not provoking bad behaviour or anything) and I am not in a position where I can write about my thoughts. My specific thoughts may float away irretrievably amongst the mind chatter of the day or the swirl of nightly dreams, but the seed of the thoughts remain behind and sometimes, not always, spark an essay of my own later. Two (bet your forgot there was a two coming, huh?), sometimes even if I am alert and have time and have lovely fully-formed thoughts provoked by a lovely fully-formed post, I don't post about it, or comment on it, or anything. This is just because I can't be sure that my own thoughts are not just "pissing on the territory" so to speak. If I am massively impressed, I may just post a link and an awed, brief remark, but when it falls somewhere in between - I have some strong agreement, some minor nitpicks, a few "I don't get its" but an overall pleasurable sense of engagement with the post - I often just don't feel that I can add anything worth publishing. If I had unlimited time, and we could all meet face to face in an infinite coffeehouse somewhere and talk to our hearts' content, I would say a lot more. The blog is an imperfect tool, striving for some as yet undefined ideal.