This will be my last post on the Word Warrior for the foreseeable future. Probably, hopefully longer. I retire of blogging.
This has been a long time coming, but I can only finish it impulsively. I’m fine; I’ll be better for this. A part of me regrets doing this. Some part of me will regret it tomorrow. But some part of me, mayhap a majority of my psychic parliament, regrets not doing this a while ago. This blog has always been an achingly inconstant source of pleasure, and a regular purveyor of frustration. I have lost untold hours to its distractions when I could have been engaged in the sort of writing I really want to do (and also homework). But the occasional reward of a meaningful dialogue inspired by my comments or postings kept drawing me back.
Never again; for this blog is a project that has outlived its purpose. When Femmemeister and Dash started this blog, they challenged us to:
[C]ross visions. Let’s engage in some real political dialogue. Let’s advance the debate and truly engage with the issues rather than simply picking sides…This blog’s goal is to take on the challenge of using words to connect, progress, and enlighten. Look forward to some quirky yet informative banter, global, national and campus news, thoughtful critiques, and some real engagement with the issues…
And this went splendidly, for a time. The blog hosted vigorous discussion by conversationalists from every walk of the Marquette community, though many participants were of the co-blogger’s immediate social circle. Both our founders eventually moved on. I stepped up, and brought no such battery of engaged friendly readership. Comments died down to a trickle, only occasionally sloshing over when a troll pounded at the floodgates. Then, that great impetus to conversation, the election, resolved itself in such a way as to minimize all friendly complaints. The troll fell silent as stone, and anyway we had not been taking the time to respond. Comments died again, and debate, conversation, cross-visioning, stopped. Yet I kept talking to myself, from atop my electric soap box.
It is perhaps cowardice, or a stroke of Burkean prejudice for tradition which inspires me to continue to withhold my Christian name, even now in departing. Most of you already know it. For those of you who don’t, it is a barren fact. You would learn nothing about me; my blogging here is a more complete archive of my opinions than I have ever before assembled. With no one person had I ever discussed women’s issues, gay rights, my discontents with the Democratic Party, compatibilism, legal positivism, Spinoza, Santayana, Dollhouse (of which season 2 premieres this Friday, Sept. 25 @ 8/9 c. on Fox, and which will be available on Hulu 11 a.m. Saturday ), religion and irreligion, the travesty to our society that is the condoning of torture by the highest offices, my childhood obsessive-compulsive disorder and persisting social phobias, my reading lists and favorite paintings. I even blogged my revelation about possibly having Asperger syndrome before committing the datum to my personal journals.
I’ve proffered myself with a more thorough introduction to my readers than I’ve ever been able to do in person. Who am I? I am Bento. I was, am, shall be Bento. Yet I have always been more than him, want to be more than we are now. I hope now to get to know some of you better, without these monitors to distract us.
Thank you for making me a part of your day.
Cheers.
Rene Magritte, 1937, "La reproduction interdite"
The Word Warrior 
Hope everything turns out well Bento! Good luck with your last year (I think…) of MU.
I totally understand the reasons why you’re hanging up your hat, Bento, so I’ll just thank you (and the founders) for what is, in my opinion, the most well-thought, provocative, grammatically and stylistically elegant, and dialogical student blog I’ve ever had the pleasure of reading.
Best of luck to you in all that you do.
Sincerely,
Melissa Shew
Melissa shew wrote:
“Thank you (and the founders) for what is, in my opinion, the most well-thought, provocative, grammatically and stylistically elegant, and dialogical student blog I’ve ever had the pleasure of reading.”
I agree with every word of that, and second it!
Too Bad. I have really enjoyed your posts. But I wish you all the best! Good luck man.
Thanks, all.
Kel: Yes, last year. Hopefully. Eager.
Matt: Thanks to you, who has always been one of my most loyal commenters.
Prof. Shew: Thanks much, especially if you meant “dialogical” in the techical sense I had to look up.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dialogical_self
Whenever I had the time, I did try to exhaust all live options of possibility; I hope it showed.
Thank you so much for all the wonderful work you’ve done on this blog! You should be proud–I know I am.
Best,
Kaye
Oh, Bento, I will miss you. I agree with Dr. Shew, Matt, and Kaye. Having been with this blog from its genesis, I am certainly sad to see you depart. I know the feeling, though, of leaving something in this way. I hope we see each other face to face some time soon.
Love,
Ali
Kaye:
Thank you again for the opportunity. I’m not sure what your expectations were when you gave the keys to the blog to the quiet guy without a writing sample; so I’ve only been able to hope I met or exceeded them, whatever they were.
In any case, you’re my degree-of-seperation from Harvard Greatness. I hope you have better luck with that than I’ve had here.
Ali:
Hope to, too. The Internet is weird.
Might I ask, what exactly does the future hold for The Word Warrior? 🙂
Not sure. You want it?
Ali, I recommend the same as Bento, you should take his place.
Thanks for all the work you put in. What a disappointment. I really enjoyed the Word Warrior.
Colleen Fenno