The lovely Vesper awarded me the Sisterhood award. The glorious domestic goddess Lola gave me the This Blog has Heart award and the golden-hearted Aerin bestowed upon me the Proximidade award.
In time honoured fashion, I’m supposed to pass these all on. But here’s the thing: while I do love giving and receiving awards, I really, really don’t like the process of singling people out - and thereby leaving others out of that process. All the people I blog with are special; to say you or you or you are more special in some way than the next person is the sort of stuff that creates divisions and I think we already have quite enough of that in the world. While there are well some people that I have a greater affinity and closer connection with than others, as is entirely normal, I know the disappointment that people feel when they don’t perhaps see their names listed below a particular award.
So, to be a complete party pooper in terms of the blogosphere code of conduct (whatever that might be and besides, since when did I give too much of a fig about rules), I’m dishing these out to YOU. Yes, that’s YOU. Yes, you.
The Sisterhood award is self explanatory – it’s about that sense of bonding and connecting. I’m extending it to be a brotherhood award too. Let’s face it, when it comes down to the brass whatsits, we’re all in this together and we’re all interconnected whether we recognise it or not. As an only child, I rather like the idea that I’ve gathered so many siblings out here in cyberspace. So there – brothers and sisters – take the award, it’s yours. Just remember, play nicely with the other kids too!
The Your Blog has Heart is pretty self explanatory too – and all your blogs have heart – if they didn’t they wouldn’t exist. Every blog that I read has heart in it, it’s what makes it what it is, it’s what gives it life. So there you go! Take the award and pass it on.
Now the Proximidade Award probably does need some explanation – and the explanation is this:
It’s an award that goes to a blog that invests and believes in the PROXIMITY - nearness in space, time and relationships. These blogs are exceedingly charming. These kind bloggers aim to find and be friends. They are not interested in prizes or self-aggrandizement! Our hope is that when the ribbons of these prizes are cut, even more friendships are propagated.
Erm, I’ve modified that marginally by lopping off the end of the “speech”.
I honestly think the whole thing about the blogosphere is about the proximity it creates – it brings all of us closer together, creating communities and friendships in cyberspace – and in doing so, it shows our interconnectedness, our “linkedness”, our commonalities. Time and space are concepts, what supercedes them are the relationships, the connections made, that don’t trouble themselves with - and that override - the strictures of the concepts.
So I think this is an award, like the others, has to go to YOU. You may not have set out to make friends or be part of community, but hey, you know what, you have made friends and you are part of a community! Cool!
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