All the flowers would have very extra special powers...They could sit and talk to me for hours

I remember in the very first class we had with Mark Lipton, he told us he loved metaphors. before class was over, he had mentioned how all of us had been little seeds, and although we may believe all he is doing is feeding us large amounts of fertilizer, we all have the potential to become beautiful flowers. I asked him what his favourite flower was at the end of class, and he told me he loves white tulips, and find gingersnaps to be the most interesting. Then in class last week he had talked about shovelling shit - and mentioned something about 'not using that in our end letter, because that was his metaphor'. It made sense, so I figured... I might as well make one up on my own. Except I'm not going to write it about him, or his class... just the part of it that stressed me out the most, the blog.



Blogs, and more specifically, the type of blog that Mark Lipton has us writing are like leaves. The nature of a leaf, is to fall, fade and eventually disintegrate into nothing. However, in a new season, new ones will stem from the old. I sat and thought about how many students will actually keep their blogs when all is said and done. If they are not kept up with, the memories of them will fall from our minds as something we only once were, and the beliefs we only once thought about. As for the people who have not kept up with them but have kept a record of their old thoughts, and things they have learned- they will surely use there blogs once again to sprout new ideas- but for different subjects. "new ideas, will stem from the old". If they don't, I questioned whether they should be deleted to clean up the already cluttered world wide web. Like fallen leaves, should they be racked away and forgotten?

Blogs spur on new content, and the pile up of old ones has an unbelievable mass. People blog about their beliefs, about subjects they feel strongly about. They blog about whats going on in their life- as an online journal- and even schoolwork, and projects. What happens if they change their beliefs, or change their mind about something they once believed in so strongly- should those thoughts be deleted? Or should we take advantage of the fact that our minds once thought a certain way- but has grown. Look at it for what it once was, a beautifully coloured individual idea - then maybe take a look at what has happened in that time around you in the world, what was being shown to you through the media? through your family, your friends, and your lifestyle? How had it effected you directly?

David Weinberger used a similar metaphor but for folksonomy.

Folksonomy — A means of classifying and categorizing data on the web through collaborative efforts from the online community. This is more commonly known as (though not strictly synonymous to) ‘tagging’. ( Sixthings 1)

In his analogy he stated "that we want complexity - we want to find the answers ". To relate this to my metaphor, I would like to think that if someone wanted complexity and is reading one of your old posts- they would take the time to pay attention to dates, as well as other content and maybe explore some of your newer ideas as well as the old.














<--- And a beautiful flower I am.


1. "A Quick Web 2.0 Glossary." SixThings. 24 Feb. 2006. SixThings. 26 Nov. 2007 .