In case I'm giving myself a hater reputation:

I am not a hater of Tumblr. 

Tumblrs a tool.  It just most often uses you. I don't even have a Tumblr, and I've been used by it. But there are those that don't. Esther's Frequency of Words is a perfect example.  Unlike most Tumblrs that are filled with pictures that make you anything but happy with where you are, Esther's always collecting quotes, images, and stories that give you courage for where you are.  I think that really is what it all boils down to for me.  We have to dream.  But, we can't become so lost in another world of cute couples kissing and beautiful beach shores that we stop really living our single, rainy lives to the fullest.  I've been caught by it.  I don't want to be.  Creation has to be real.  It has to be here.  Because here is where you can touch and change and transform.  I'm worried Tumblr takes our focus to a world that's not ours and a time that's not now. Rather than giving courage or giving us new eyes to see today, it sucks up our emotions and distracts our thoughts, leaving us feeling the emotional after-affects of creativity maybe, but it's more just a high and when the dawn comes up tomorrow, we don't have anything concrete in our hands to prove for it.  We've made nothing.  How many sunrises are we going to wake up with a creative (emotional) hang-over to wonder, what did I even do last night?  Look around and find nothing.  I think that's what I'm afraid of for us all.  That we'll wake up at the end, and wonder, what did we even do?  Nothing. And so, while I don't hate Tumblr, I'm starting to suspect it.  A lot. And I don't want to be a user. When I feel spent up from creativity, I want to wake up to a pen and poem.  I want to hear a melody I chased down the night before.  I want to see and touch and be able to give away, and leave something true and costly. Something I helped to create.

So there it is, I don't hate Tumblr.  I pretend to have a vendetta against it.  Why? Maybe because I'm on Blogspot, and it's fun.  Honestly, I think Wordpress people seem the most prestigious and scholarly.  Blogspot seems like homemakers and real creators.  Tumblr can be too, but mostly it seems like Teenagers.  I don't really care where you choose to host your blog.  I just want to upset you.  I want to make you furious enough with me that you go write something, or take a picture of your own that blows people away.  I want you to prove me wrong. I want you to stop, and create. I want you to ask yourself the questions.  Because in one sense, to each his own.  But as I said the other day, I want an authentic community of creators.  So I think I'm going to see if I can provoke myself out of this illusion, and a few of you with me.  But don't worry, I don't plan to get stuck talking about doing this... I plan to just start doing it.  Here's the gunfire at the start....be startled. Then, start.

PS, guess where I get most of my photos? Tumblr. What would I do without it? I just don't want us to get consumed or stuck. You'll still find dreamy photos on mine as you have before.  Black and white pictures of sweet couples... collections of things I love and am moved by.  But I want to be moved, to move.... and I want my blog to do the same for others. 

How often have you opened your laptop for a moment, and found yourself still looking at blogs, hours later?  And how much of that was true creative quality? You could have read a book - are you getting lost in rabbit holes and feeding yourself on tea parties? That's all I'm after. What's the creative substance you're devouring night after night? And is it giving you creative energy, or just an emotional hangover?

I am not a Tumblr hater, unless in the end, it's a key player at blocking us from really creating.  I'm starting to think it's just Creative Ritalin, helping us to cope with our Artistic ADHD.

[If you Tumble, I don't hate you.  I still like you.  I just want you to create something too.]

What you feed your eyes are leading you down empty streets,
Candle lit alley ways and avenues of make-believe.
That make you feel you feel your feet,
Seem alive and full of daring dreams.
But it's just a stream-lined,
Picture, perfect, emotion-driven alibi
With colorful pictures as street signs,
Tumbling you deeper down the rabbit hole,
Another adventure you've stole.
You're still painting by numbers
Tea parties, trends and tumblrs.
Move one: Blue dress and blonde hair,
Chasing another girl's hare (rather, rabbit)
Down an endless set of notes as stairs.
Why don't you just stop? Eat the biscuit.
Grow up, stop looking at gardens through key holes,
Read the book, not just the quote.
And answer the real question that he posed,
Who are you? And when did you forget your role?
You were meant to be an original.
But on your adventures in Tumblrland, you forgot.
Fear not, creativity can still be found if sought.
Stop painting all the roses red, and learn how a rose is wrought.

Photo: Three Nails Photography

The Social Median.

Girls used to cry alone and fall asleep,
Now they just post pictures and parade as deep.
We used to write our hearts on paper
We'd keep beneath our beds, and layers.
It was our pain, and we'd fight the derail,
We'd make it to morning, after a long night's trail.
And we'd look back, and the fight would be ours.
No one would know of that journey under the stars,
No one would see what the blood did to our dreams,
No one would could comment, or like, or re-stream.
And it didn't matter, because we'd grown in the night,
And the night didn't need to be seen, in plain sight.

Yes, we'd grow in the night, and in the night we'd grow deep.
Now they miss sleep, to broadcast their heartaches, their journey as steep,
Their hearts as the lonely, their dreams as unseen.
But I read it all yesterday, it was all in my feed.