Blogging and blog-thinking
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Another of those spates where I haven’t been doing much with the blog, and the need to “upgrade or quit” makes me wonder for the umpteenth time why I do this.And the most obvious answer, always, is pure narcissism. With a weblog, you get to present your thoughts as if they were worthy of being published somewhere. You get to put little half-formed musings together and know that you might be sharing a screen, somewhere around the world, with high-ranking and fully-vetted cultural voices. And in this lonely world, which the super-excessive noise and busy-ness of the internet has rendered that much lonelier, you can hear the sound of your own voice, for what it’s worth.
All of that carries a lot of emotional weight, even if it is a little pathetic. But I don’t really think that’s why I’ve kept at it for this long. After all, the problem with working that hard to hear the sound of your own voice is that when you really begin to, you’re bound to be appalled. Things that sounded much more profound, clever and unique litter the archives here as they do on so many other blogs.
And I certainly can’t put the whole exercise down as being for some kind of general benefit to society. I may not possess a lot of humility and honesty, but I have enough not to pretend that I blog for my own benefit more than for anyone else’s.
The need to upgrade to a newer version of WordPress provides a natural juncture to give it up, and yet, I’m fairly certain that I won’t. I wonder why that is. I think I’m inclined to say that in the short time I’ve been doing it, I’ve found it to be a helpful tool toward figuring out what I really think. So often, my mind is cluttered with flotsam and jetsam, and when there’s something important to think about, I’m likely to find that my abilities to problem-solve are hampered by trying to separate what is true, honest and real from the fantasies and effluvia of 21st century heterodoxy and nonsense.
When the events of the day put problems before me — what’s to be done, who do you believe, who do you vote for, what action (if any) do you take — I need to collect my thoughts and put them in order, and the blog has been occasionally invaluable in doing that. I don’t really do it — at least I hope I don’t do it — because I think I’m a good arbiter of what is universally true in all these things. It’s more because I’m fairly sure that most of what I think is wrong-headed, superficial and only half-formed intellectually and spiritually. But there’s 1– or 2– or 3-percent that isn’t, and if I don’t put all my thoughts down somewhere, I may never find out what the fraction had to tell me.
So there we go: That’s all the excuse I have to offer for continuing to spend time doing something that doesn’t make much sense and wastes time in a somewhat shocking way some days.
Well, there’s that, and the fact that apart from a blog, I have no place to publish sketches of Clementine.
Related posts:
- The dog, the band and blogging
- Blog-free zone till Tuesday
- Stand back. I’m thinking
- So you want to blog
- Blog-o-matic
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3 Responses and Counting...
I frequently have a lot of these same thoughts — and conclusions. Not only does my blog provide a place where I can think, and am forced to make at least a little sense — at least to myself — using the English language, but it’s a creative effort even when I’m trying to put together a nice-looking report on my cooking efforts. Maybe the way some people like scrapbooking. What would be less narcissistic for me would be if I turned off the comments. But then I wouldn’t have the rewarding dialogue with the many people who are likeminded; without our blogs we’d likely not meet, as so many of us are introverts. I hope you do keep it up!
Same here. I often struggle with whether to keep my blog going; it does seem narcissistic at times. I started blogging during cancer treatment and the truth is that it is very therapeutic. I consider it part of my recovery, similar to going to a support group (and studies have shown that patients who attend support groups have less recurrence rates, if these studies are to be believed). I don’t get a lot of comments on my blog, so I often feel I’m sending my words out into a black hole. But that’s okay. It really is like keeping a regular journal, but you’re sharing it with the whole world! If nothing else, I am documenting my everyday life and capturing moments I would probably forget about otherwise. And it does help me sort out my thoughts and feelings. Often, as I’m writing about my initial topic, my stream-of-consciousness will turn in another direction and my blog entry will be about something entirely different than what I’d intended. If I hadn’t set out to write in the first place, I would have never discovered the thoughts hidden beneath the surface. I bet you know what I’m talking about. I agree with Gretchen … I enjoy your blog and hope you do keep it up!
Very similar! Blogging has kind of come and gone with a lot of people, and I think part of the reason is that once you find out that almost no one is actually “listening” to you, you have to figure out whether the time invested is worth the takeaway.
A couple times, I’ve said I should just roll it up, and I may do that any time. But Greg tells me he thinks I should keep doing it, and his vote carries a lot of weight.
Dana, I’ve absolutely had that thing happen where the post I end up with isn’t at all the one I started out with. And I’ve re-read posts where I insisted on staying “on-message” and wish now I hadn’t.
Yep, guess we’re in it for now. What the hay, right? :-/
(PS: Dana, I hadn’t seen your blog before. Added you to my blogroll, but it’s one of the things on the site that’s a little busted right now. Another reason to try and fix stuff.)