Purpose?

During my professional life today I shirked my responsibilities and wrote down my post-to-be organically, aka, with a #2 pencil and a blank sheet of paper. Wild. So Zach wrote all of one paragraph before goading me into a debate about meaning and purpose, I must say, I like where this is going.

Purpose, eh? (I love parentheses as well, so stop stealing my identity Zach). Here is what I wrote while I should have been playing Chutes and Ladders with 5-year olds:

It seems as if, in this first of many responses, that I should answer the question "what is the purpose of this blog?" or "what is the purpose of blogging?" My electronic history is peppered with a host of different blogs, some more developed than others, some never maturing beyond a mildly clever title. What I have learned from my previous blogging episodes is this: 99% of blogs are purely masturbatory.

I find that people don't know exactly what I am getting at when I label something as "masturbatory." I simply mean that it, whatever "it" happens to be at the time, is a practice that has no inherent value, but serves as a pleasant pastime. The adjective is far more useful than calling something "vacuous" or "meaningless." Why? Because words similar to those most recently quoted tend to have a pejorative connotation which is nearly impossible to dissolve away when conversating with non-cynics. As such, I prefer to use the more positive, more puzzling, and more jarring term "masturbatory." (I am now struck by the thought that my use of the word "masturbatory" may, in fact, be masturbatory.)

There is more that I wrote today, but in light of Ben's post I don't find the rest necessary.

I am going to go ahead and AGREE with Zach that everything has a purpose. However, all purpose is constructed, actively or passively, by humans...there is no inherent value in anything. This blog has a purpose, yet at the same time this blog is completely devoid of meaning. Even so, what I want this blog to do for me, and for others, is to call the tenets of my belief structure into question. That is honestly the only time I feel that what I'm doing is important. Luckily, conversations between myself, Ben, and Zach generally lead me to question something about my beliefs. I guess that is my "introduction."

So I just reread my post and it is kind of all over the place, but you know what, that's fine. I wasn't sure if I was supposed to get into an ideological debate or simply introduce myself, or explain what I think the blog is supposed to be. Well, I'm Kyle. Meaning is a human construct and as humans will eventually all be dead all meaning will eventually be dead, if it was ever really alive. This blog is supposed to be the place where I attempt to achieve intellectual orgasm.

Can we get some sort of concrete issue to tango with? Going third in a who-knows-what-this-post-will-be-about series is whack.