A day late and a dollar short…
I have tried this before, back when blogging was still an infant.
I could have been in on the ground floor of this passing phenomenon. Instead, I find I am somewhere in the middle—and more than likely on the backside of that middle—of a fad.
Questions
What is the fascination with blogs? I have several friends that do it. Is it because of the social networking—another buzzword of the digital generation? Perhaps, it is a personal satisfaction in knowing that strangers, family, and friends alike, are reading your words, interpreting your meanings and identifying with them. Is it a narcissistic need to be recognized? Andy Warhol’s 15 minutes of fame digitized. Therapy? The world is my shrink.
I am asking myself why I am attempting it for the umpteenth time. Why did I not stick to it to begin with? I read blogs that are faithfully maintained daily, if not hourly. A friend told me last night that it is less work to tweak and tinker with the look and feel of a blog than it is to write one. He is correct and of course he blogs.
I read all sorts of blogs and subscribe to one or two. There are journals that record everything from weight-loss to genealogy. Diaries that record some of the most intimate of thoughts and the mundane of daily activity. You have industry specific blogs that tutorialize, review and debate everything from electronics to politics. The information flow is endless.
And that is it in a nutshell—information. We are beings that crave input and output–we thrive on it. Our needs go beyond the simple curiosities of trying to decide if something is edible or mate-able. We need to create, we need to digest the intangible, we need to leave our mark and blogs are just another medium. It allows us a stamp in the present and a place somewhere in the future, no matter how obscure.
I am no different. In a life full of missed opportunities, failures and regrets, I find it hard to focus on achievements. By posting my thoughts in a public forum, I hope to find souls that will empathize with me, discuss things with me, and validate my existence before that existence is no more.
YES, a blog is therapy! For me, anyway. When a friend of mine suggested I start it, I could only think “NO!” I mean, why? Why do it? Who cares?
But then I realized it’s for me. If and when I feel like sharing a thought that maybe nobody will care about, but maybe quite a few peopel can identify with. And it’s not so bad. I think it’s reduced my road rage, even. I can get out my rages online and then be perfectly happy driving home behind someone who can’t find the gas pedal.
Oh, and I suppose there are those who want to share actual useful information! Show-offs.
I was reading a post on CNet about reasons NOT to blog. If you must blog it gave you pointers on how to do it anonymously. Job retention is a good thing.
Thanks for being me first commentator, fwiend!
I don’t think blogging is a fad. It’s writing and posting the results onto the internet. Had technology turned out a little differently, it might have been published on a CD-ROM, written to paper tape, or broadcast over the television or a green-screen monitor.
Write about what you think about on a daily or regular basis. The very process of writing is therapeutic (as Kar said above) or is simply a way for you to sort out your thoughts.
The upside: there are so many people doing it (the “fad” part) that you can say nearly anything and you’ll still be nearly anonymous.
The downside: you can never be truly anonymous when you write on the internet…
Just my opinion, all blogs are, are the modern day notebooks full of scribblings of writers [and those who wish they were writers]. So I hope if isn t a fad. If I had nothing but notebooks, my idle thoughts would sink through the ground. Floppys, CDs, and other storage media are so much lighter. You can always sit at a computer writing through a problem, come to a good answer about a personal problem, then delete the work or move it to either private storage or leave it as a blog ….
Of course you are right John, blogs are journals and diaries and I doubt that they’re a fad in the long term. I think blogs are here to stay - they will just grow and evolve as all things do on the internets. There have been countless times when I’ve done exactly as you said, typed out my problems only to discover the answer after I’ve read what I typed…and never actually publishing the original writings. LOL maybe that’s why I only have two entries on this silly blog of mine.
I read your other entry, I ll try to think up something, someway, that you ll be able to join all your hobbies/interest together. At least you ll be able to tell after that if it s more effiecient or not. You also have a msg at SF.
P.S. You don t have a silly blog