One advantage of extended blogging, say six months or more, is that you can start making self-referential comments. You can link yourself to yourself in order to avoid misrepresentation. On many of the topics I write about - joy, pain, hoops, coffee, heaven - there's already an existing body of work. Written by me.
Sometimes I wonder if this is narcissistic. I try to balance excessive self-quotation by pulling in outside sources. Blogging so easily lends itself to self-obsession that one has to be careful. For that very reason (I think) I rarely go back and read my old posts...although there could be other reasons, such as that some of them are ridiculous. As they say, Write and learn.
Sometimes I find myself trying to say the same things over and over, and it's a relief to look back and notice that I seem to be saying them better this time around.
Wednesday, April 27, 2005
Quoting Myself
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2 comments:
I'm sure it's reassuring to know that BitterSweetLife is gradually taking on an epic status, becoming truly seminal. Referencing one's self is always a sure sign of that.
Actually, I have to admit that I've been guilty of the same sort of narcissism (refering to an authority while simultaneously being that authority) in a academic paper (gasp!). I actually quoted myself multiple times--at least one reference to a blog post and another to a previous paper. I've yet to discover whether my audacity is tramped upon...
"BitterSweetLife is gradually taking on an epic status, becoming truly seminal."
Hmm, good thought. I've always known that when someone is widely quoted, they're influential. I never realized until recently that one can create these circumstances by quoting himself. ;)
I stand in awe of your academic audacity. You have to let me know how this plays out...will your professor take the time to track down those tiny font URL footnotes? And if he stumbles upon Infinite Regression - what then? All kinds of storylines are possible.
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