Theme Week: Responsibility

This is an experimental theme week, which is to say it is slightly more experimental than usual. For a single week only, we are going to try to post on a set schedule, each of us falling into place behind the last like the gears on a jewel-encrusted cog.

If, somehow, we find ourselves taking a liking to this alien conceit of scheduling, we may continue it in the future. That is not a promise.

What does it mean to be responsible, and why are a bunch of young internet hooligans like ourselves trying it on for size?

Well, we aren't, really. I mean, our last theme week was Hedonism Week, and it stretched on for a decade, during which we frequently forgot to write anything at all for years at a time.

So maybe this is responsibility week because it's time for a bit of a change. Maybe this is responsibility week because we've tried nearly everything else. And maybe, just maybe, this is responsibility week because we're out of better ideas, or because it seemed like a good idea at the time.

That is more or less our motto.

But I would hold that we are no more irresponsible than the average citizen of this benighted world. We may take up amusing affectations, don curious clothing and spend far too much time reading, listening to music and thinking, but I find nothing inherently irresponsible in these acts. We are not betraying our country or the world by devoting ourselves to intellectual and aesthetic pursuits. One must appreciate beauty in order to create it.

The day before yesterday I was interviewing protesters in Pittsburgh, when I suddenly found myself the target of interview myself, by a freelancing journalist. Asked to comment, I found myself spewing forth an incredibly optimistic rant about internet communities becoming involved in real-world politics, and how I felt this was a positive sign of the times. The bemused journalist found herself struggling to keep up, and after a moment or two I found myself feeling foolish as I recited back a few of the more sensical sentences to her.

The urge to run my mouth has apparently not subsided. I'll probably be speaking to you again tomorrow about the protest itself. There are pictures to be shown and tales to be told, and I get to look somewhat dashing, or at least silly, in my Goggles of Truth.