ThirstyFish

The outer building of Izmir Passport Pier.

I was asked again why I don't allow comments on ThirstyFish? Well, I never intended ThirstyFish to be a blog, but rather a web-log; I place where I post photos, take notes, scribble ideas and humor myself. Yes, feedback could be worthwhile, but anyone who has anything useful to say emails me anyway [lower right corner of this page]. The problem with "comments" is that they take time and effort; Blog moderation, trolls, having to read superficial comments, etc., etc., etc.

I recently came across a blog titled The Nerdy Feminist. The author has some really good posts. In one of her recent posts she reflects a common sentiment among bloggers. She is "annoyed and confused" by two types of people. One, those who troll the Internet "to find people they dislike, writing they disagree with, and general stuff to complain about..." And two, the group she calls "the arbiters of what is 'really important'". That second point made me think. Of course I agree with her about trolls wasting everybody's time, but could it be that we actually need "arbiters of really important stuff"?

One would think, the media might play the role of "arbiters of really important stuff". But they are too busy covering what Kim Kardashian is up to, missing airplanes, petty scandals of politicians etc. Then, how about academics and intellectuals? More often than not, they turn out to be careerists obsessed with respect and specialization in their specific fields. Most don't have any sense of what is important. And finally, there is the Internet. You would think that easy access to vast amounts of knowledge and perspective would eventually provide us with the ability to prioritize that which is important. But, we see that the opposite is happening; Even if we could overcome filter bubbles, we still find ourselves in information bubbles; There is just too much information to sort through, validate and prioritize, so we just stick to issues and subjects we are interested in, generally unaware of the really important stuff.

There is such a thing as "the really important stuff". Existence precedes essence. As we bemuse and amuse ourselves, blogging about our cars, our gardens, Miley Cyrus' nipples, TV shows and shopping, the material world on which we exist is being threatened by our very own ignorant existence. Without a healthy material world, there are no ideals, no ideas, no us. There are many dimensions to our ignorance that threatens our very existence. And, I have to add, the culture of patriarchy is definitely one of them.