The Drive for Renown / Duality unto others

In the past few weeks of setting up the blog, designing the site and generally trying to figure out how this whole new side of the interweb works, I have noticed a rather annoying trend. Much the same as anyone setting up a homepage or business website, people creating blogs seem to be caught up in the hunt to be number "1". Comments on other peoples blogs are full of spam to promote the blogs or blog search engines of others, blogs are full of internet garbage like Ebay links, porn, or just junk with repetitive keywords to produce a better Google or Technorati result.

I've spent a large portion of today looking for interesting blogs. Not just groups of people who have only barely evolved from MySpace, or sites that are no more than a replica of a business website so that the company gets more exposure to search engines. I've found some that were vaguely interesting but hard to decipher, many that do nothing other than regurgitate CNN and BBC:Worldwide feeds, and only one or two that seemed as though they had something worthwhile to say.

Now, I am the first person to put my hand up and say that I am probably not the most interesting or innovative person on the 'net. I will however, endeavour to make every post here an original post. If I quote a news site it will be because I have something to say about that article, and I will say it.

So, now that I have made that rather worrying promise, I can point you to a site that I found today on my searches. This site is called Strangers Among Us. It is a collaborative blog by a few guys who take photos around their towns that capture people in action. Not posed or planned, but people living their lives. The post that really grabbed my attention was this one - Errands at Box Stores. More specifically the photo of the cashier at a coffee shop in the process of being abused by a customer. There is something in that picture that, I think, captures the duality of life. This poor cashier has no choice but to assist the customer, no matter if he was at fault, or if the person is just plain unreasonable, and all the while he must be thinking that he is better than this.

How many times have we all been in a situation where we have been on the receiving end of something that was undeserved and yet have had to bear it because at that moment we have no other option. It seems obvious to me that if people would only remember those times in their life, that we would be treating each other a lot better. What ever happened to "Do unto others.."?