the good kind of logging (happy Earth Day y'all)

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Let me first just tell you that I love trees.

Now let me tell you why I love logging.

WORDS! Logging words.

Not trees. (I HATE TREE LOGGING).

...

This is a blog (web log) that is an ode to (b)logging itself.

I really was dreading my commitment to myself to be logging words and publishing them on the web right now --- the combination of which we call blogging.

Then, in thinking of it as "logging" rather than "blogging," (in an attempt to make myself want to do it more), I realized it’s ridiculously ironic (perhaps even rather inappropriate) to be talking about “logging”in any positive way on Earth Day.

I can assure you this writing a blog about blogging as logging on Earth Day was really a total accident. I didn’t realize the irony until I was several paragraphs in. (Actually I didn’t even know what I was going to write about at all when I opened this document) ... But, having realized it, it’ll provide for a pretty funny headline, don’t you think? You’ll have already seen the headline by the time you read this paragraph, of course. But I’m just now dreaming it up: “The Joys of Logging on Earth Day.” Deliciously unholy … devilishly misleading … everything you want a headline to be!

(There’s a reason my journalistic career tanked, folks).

Anywho, until I realized I could make a funny pun out of this, I didn’t feel like logging any information at all, let alone on the web. My plan was to log some information about not wanting to log information, and yet, stoically and stalwartly, doing it for the sake of the art of logging. In particular: logging a Thursday night in late April in my van with my two dogs and my cat at 9:22 pm.

I really do prefer the vibe/meaning of “log” rather than “blog,” though, don’t you? But according to this wonderfully inspirational article on (we)blogging (which inspired this post and will probably make you want to start your own web log if you haven’t yet), if we don’t like the word “blog,” we should just get in line and get over ourselves as well as the unfortunate slang society chose as the sum when “web + log” became one. And then, we should just web log … (call it what it is, Virginia) --- BLOG ... away, anyway.

So here I am. Logging on Earth Day.

Before I go, let’s take a quick look at some definitions of “log” that don’t involve cutting down trees.

noun wise: “an official record of events during the voyage of a ship or aircraft."

verb wise:

"to make a note or record of : enter details of or about in a log."

I mean, who doesn’t love likening their life to the odyssey-esque voyage of a ship or an aircraft? (Or a campervan?)

On such an epic journey as that of a ship or an aircraft ... or a Tiger Provan named Tortigra or a human being called Virginia ... there is much to make note or record of, let me tell you.

That’s why I’m out here (web) logging, y’all.

Also, log actually does have epic roots.

Like, etymologically.

Not like real roots that die when you cut down trees okay.

The word log, Merriam Webster tells me (and I think, duh, why didn’t I see that without your help, Merriam), comes from the Greek logos. Then, on the same line it informs me of this etymological connection, Merriam tells me --- “more at LEGEND.”

So I click the hyperlinked, all-caps LEGEND, my portal to more, and the page it takes me to tells me that "legend is akin to Greek legein to gather, say, logos, speech, word, reason."

Takeaway?

Logging the details of this voyage through the sea of life in this human vessel is a legendary task.

Don’t let what that logging becomes when it hits the web fool you with the frivolity of its phonetics.

Blogging is still legendary.

p.s. I know this blog was one big joke, but I do want to assure you that I’m quite serious that you are a living legend and that logging the details of your life documents humanity and the human experience in a way no other vessel can … since you’re the only one on your singular epic AF voyage.

p.p.s. Start a (b)log!