Feuer der Seele, or "How I found my inner blog."
Posted by Unknown , Sunday, February 17, 2008 5:26 PM
I thought I'd take a break from pissed-off-posting to take a long look in the mirror. What is Adamant's Fire all about? What does it mean to me? What am I hoping to accomplish?
To answer that, I have to explain (or at least remember) why I named this "Adamant's Fire" in the first place.
From the first post back in September 2005:I'm sure that this sounds frivolous and not as serious as I've read in some of the other bloggers[sic] post, but I refuse to resign myself to that sort of political jargon incessantly. I am not brilliant, but I am far from stupid. I'll make my comments on current events as it suits me, as this is my corner of the web and no one elses [sic].
That first post says a lot about where I was when I began writing here, besides being a commentary on my proofread-as-I-write skills). I wanted an open corner - something that belonged to me, but something that everyone could see. But I dropped Blogger before it could even think about becoming a bad habit. I went over to Xanga, but that went bust sometime early last year. I'd been typing away over at Xanga, but I had locked that profile and even protected some of the posts. What's the point of keeping a blog when it's only a conversation between you and certain people? If that's all it is, then why not tell them personally? That's what my Xanga boiled down to. It wasn't about writing about the world and being aware. It was about constantly turning inward, constantly reaching for something, and then constantly shelving it, away from curious eyes.
If I wanted to be constantly introspective, I should have started a diary. I think that realization hit me sometime ago. I became overwhelmingly dissatisfied at my desire to dissect myself. I accept that the unexamined life isn't worth living. But life is broad, and doesn't just include my own, right? So now, my Xanga sits, overgrown with weeds and ivy.
As clear as my intentions were, I didn't post on Adamant's Fire until that following May. Because that entry came after such a long hiatus, the new entry set the tone. I was leaving for Florence, and it was my first time out of the country. I was very afraid, but I was excited. I felt like an explorer, setting out to chart a legendary territory. While few places are as thoroughly mapped out as Italy, I was able to keep myself from the disenfranchisement inherent in European traveling - the thought of "this has been done before."
I've established that this blog is about possession (ideas, opinions, emotions, space), but also about passion.
A username that I use a lot is "Adamanthenes." You may have noticed that my username for this blog is "W.E.B. Adamant." It was a very conscious switch, though subtle and a lot easier to pronounce.
"Adamant" is a contradiction. As can be seen throughout this blog and throughout many of my other writings, I am adamant about many things - opinionated, sometimes unwavering, and bold. However, I can be just as confused, wishy-washy, and indecisive - even weak - as anyone else. I can be everything, and I can be nothing. Sometimes, it doesn't take much to make me one way or the other.
The suffix, -henes, is very much ancient and not of my time, but I dreamed the fusion of "Adamant" and "-henes" after reading Orson Scott Card's Ender's Game, in which one of the characters (Valentine) writes on the "nets" as "Demosthenes." I took due inspiration, and left it at that. (Last summer while I was in the Musei Vaticani, I quite accidentally happened upon my partial namesake's 2000-year-old bust. It was strange and amazing.)
I don't remember when I made the switch to "W.E.B. Adamant", but I did it because I wanted to make a new name for myself. W.E.B. Adamant was going to be my nom de plume. Of course, it was going to be awesome and launch my literary career. Somewhat depressingly, those dreams were somewhat squashed when people missed the hint and associated my name with the my awesome pseudonym. I'm still thinking of another. I'll be alright, though. It'll take more than a pseudonym to get me down.
To the point: Adamant's Fire is about the passion of Adamant. I only post what I feel motivated to write (unless it's filler - and I was motivated at *some* point to write it). This isn't supposed to be the mundane, constantly introspective blog that 12-year-olds write in their ultra-private diaries with the easy-to-pick lock. This is about passion, about fire, and about dreams of the future.
Now, that's not a high goal at all, is it?
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