-- Thursday, July 15, 1999 --

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10:44 a.m. Why are these words here? Why are you here? Why am I here? These are all good questions.

I've been reading and reading and reading about journals on the web, tracking back to when they started (maybe sometime in 1995?), wondering how many of them there are (nearly 2,000 as of today). and most important, trying to find an answer to the Nancy Kerrigan-type, long and loud question: "Why?"

There is a lot of anguished gnashing from people who think this is a bad idea, a bad thing, a bad turn in the road for humanity. Too much introspection will grow hair on your eyeballs. Your navel will fall off from the intensity of your gaze. Nits will flourish, unpicked. The world doesn't need another journal on the web. The bookstore doesn't need another book on its shiny shelf. Everybody should just shut up and watch the ball game.

Oh, and could you grab me another cold one, since you're up?

But then there comes that day -- it happens -- when you suddenly stumble, or you get a small lonely pang, or you feel your power fading ... and you realize that yes you can, indeed, fall off the mountain. Not only that -- one day you absolutely will fall off the mountain, go crash, and you may or may not live to feel the pain.

That's where all this babbling comes in handy. Pain. Voices. What do you grab when you feel yourself slipping? Why, you grab at words. Someone else's words. When you yell "Help!" you want to grab hold of someone else. You hope for more in return than an empty echo.

I'm having a terribly hard time today, and I don't know why. If I hadn't set a marathon goal for myself, I'd quit and erase this and do some mending and the world would be a better place. But, I decided when I began this thing that I was going to show what it looks like to do it each and every day, even when the words are flat -- yet, the road is steep. No matter what. This is one of those days. Nothing's really the matter. Nothing really matters, either.

The world doesn't "need" another journal entry.

It can be argued that writing things down is a most important task, one that must be undertaken while there's still breath, tools, ability. I like to remind myself of the Dead Sea scrolls whenever my collar is turning so blue it's beginning to strangle me.

When the little shepherd discovered the jars buried in the mountain, he was hoping they would contain something valuable. He was horribly disappointed when he found neither oil, nor gold, nor wine. His mom was equally bitter, and together, they burned some of the stupid, useless paper in their humble fireplace, for warmth. Didn't warm them for long.

But we who can read -- we know the truth. Those papery butterfly wings still etched with words, those remaining scroll fragments, delicate and frail, are now more priceless and earthshaking than any oil or wine or gold the jars might have once contained. Because the words are alive. They mumble, they yell. They prove something. They mark the path.

And the person writing those words in the first place? Can you imagine her self-doubt and fear and loathing as she stuffed the jars and ran back down the mountain, yelling: "I'm coming, I'm coming! All the while, pretending to care about the sheep and the weaving and the fritters frying?

What if she had listened to her elders and put away the quill and papyrus, rolled up her sleeves and dug back into the puddle of poi and pounded away? Nobody cares, she keeps reminding herself, about what she has to say. What the world needs now is another loaf of bread, another jug of wine, yet another nice, stuffed to the brim jar-jar.

Tomorrow -- once again, a statement of purpose?