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The increasingly inaccurately-named blog of journalist and futurist Chris Taylor. Either the most sporadically brilliant amateur blog, the most brilliantly amateur sporadic blog, or the most amateur sporadic brilliance on the Web since 2001.
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Daily Blah FAQ
Who are you?
I'm the newly-appointed Future editor at Business 2.0 and the former San Francisco correspondent for Time Magazine.
Wow, so does this mean everything you write reflects Time Inc's opinion? Or do you perhaps have some sort of standard disclaimer to the effect that it doesn't?
Naturally, the opinions contained in this blog are not those of my employers. In fact, some opinions may be the polar opposite of my employers. Some may be the same, for all I know. Hey, it's not like I ask my employers their opinions about everything in the news, okay? Let's just say that if this were a Venn diagram with one circle marked "my opinions" and the other one marked "my employers' opinions", there would doubtless be some overlap. But neither I nor my employers are able to pinpoint exactly where that overlap is.
What is this Daily Blah thing?
An experiment for a column I wrote about blogging back in December 2001. All these years later, I haven't been able to kick the habit.
Do you write any other blogs, by chance? Could that have something to do with the fact that Daily Blah isn't always Daily?
Yes -- the Future Boy blog for Business 2.0. And yes. If you want true, editorially-mandated daily coverage from me, that's probably the best place to look.
Mister, you talk funny. Are you one of them furrners?
Why yes I am, as it happens. I was born, raised and educated in Great Britain. I've been living in the U.S. since 1996 and identify as British.
I say, old chap, you forgot the "u" in "colour."
No I didn't. I may identify as British, but I am also an American journalist writing for an American audience about mostly American issues. These two different sides of me are a constant source of tension. Nevertheless, Daily Blah will adhere to American English grammar and spelling.
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Daily Blah for... Saturday, March 11, 2006
Second Souls
It is now nearly a decade since I arrived in the US as an eager journalist of 22 tender years. Quite a landmark that is, the first American decade. Some people who are further into their international adventures than I say there is a general rule: five years is the point at which you cease to be an immigrant. By that time, as I soon found out, you are settled into the rhythms of the new country, and things will have changed so much back home -- especially in the accelerated cultures of the modern west -- that you could never truly catch up if you were to return. A part of you would always be the person you were in that other place.
"To have another language is to have a second soul," said the medieval emperor Charlemagne. Charlie didn't know much about emigration, so I'm sure he won't mind my impertinence if I update his point: to live in a second country, no matter the language, is to be growing a second soul.
If the language is the same, or roughly the same, it can take you quite a while longer to get this. But the fact is you are still growing, learning more and more about the world and the way it works -- especially if you're in your 20s, as I was. The answers you're going to start to form about the big questions in life are going to be different; sometimes obviously so, other times subtly so. You see different things, so you see things differently. Dunne wasn't quite right; a man can be an island, but the island itself is never immune to the weather patterns of the surrounding mainland.
I lived for four years in New York and, as of this month, have lived in San Francisco for six years: two cities with a laundry list of distinct attitude differences. That means I have, in effect, a four-year-old New Yorker soul and a six-year-old (as of this month) San Francis-soul existing alongside the 22-year-old Brit. The metaphor seems apt: the kids, especially the six year-old, are naively enthusiastic about life. They see the endless fun and wonder of it all, and are consequently prone to ADD.
The 22-year-old Brit is a bit of a realist, a quiet cynic, and the world's best devil's advocate. When I'm in the US, the four-year-old and the six-year-old feel comfortable and happy enough to pop up in the conscious mind and start an enjoyable internal debate, like characters in a novel (indeed, they are characters in my ongoing novel). Over here, it feels like they have been told they should be seen and not heard, and for some reason they actually behave like obedient children. The devil's advocate, the cynic, finds himself alone. In a way, it's like coming out of cryogenic freezing once or twice a year. Which would be a similar experience to coming home to the UK; it would lead to hefty draughts of nostalgia, sprinkled with future shock, and would probably require lots of cups of restorative tea.
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