"Why do I write? It's not that I want people to think I am smart, or even that I am a good writer. I write because I want to end my loneliness."
-- Jonathan Safran Foer, in an interview, The New York Times Magazine.
I've seen a lot of blogs about why people blog - here on Yahoo 360 and elsewhere. I knew my turn would come, I wouldn't be able to avoid blogging about blogging.
Way, way back - I think it was Fall 2005, when my friend, Dudley, from Penguin Athletes sent out the invitation to 360, I thought 360 was definitely all about blogging. Dud writes wonderful, amusing pieces about his life in Louisiana, his dogs, his walking and running.
That was my first exposure to 360 and so when I began to use it (first sporadically), I used it as a dump. A way to vent - and as a workout log. (I'm addicted to keeping workout logs). It then evolved to where it is now - I use it to transmit some of the excess from my brain so that I can fill it back up with new stuff. :)
I was surprised - really, genuinely surprised - when I started getting "add" requests. At first I didn't know anyone would be reading it, I did a bunch of general unloading, very journal-ish in nature. Oh, the nerdy me was still present - I wrote a bit about black holes, what they were and how they were absorbing my things, about John Adams (hero!), and David Laskin's "The Children's Blizzard." The nerdy me cannot be suppressed, neither can athlete me.
Along with invites came...people who think of 360 as a dating network. Now THAT really surprised me. What can I say? I was ignorant. By then, I had a few people on my list and all of them were people who blogged and weren't looking at this as eHarmony or some such thing. I was shocked that many of those that think of it as a dating network are infuriated when you don't think the same way, asking "Well, why are you here?" Demanding full body shots on the profile (which is EXACTLY why I won't do this... I am *not* here to hook up). Men who won't put other men on their friends list (some sort of homophobia, I think), women who expose themselves, perverts, etc, etc. I'd been going along cluelessly for months before that stuff began to come my way. Admittedly, I was so shocked that I felt the need to publicly decry it, "I will not do naked yoga on the webcam for you. I do not want your phone number. I do not want your <insert offer here>," etc and so forth. I'm hardened now - oh, I still get annoyed sometimes - but it is much easier for me to delete and ignore. Occasionally, a total idiot will still get my goat, but I no longer think "Why bother me?" because I know the idiots bother most of us. Mostly, I'm saddened by some of the desperation I see. :(
The integration of social networking and blogging here on 360 is confusing. I suppose the people who get on here looking to "hook up" are shocked by seeing essays and diatribes like I tend to write. Perhaps they will find that, aside from prowling for companionship, 360 can be a great way to make friends and learn about different cultures. A way to travel vicariously. A window into someone else's world.
About windows into other worlds: I have found that even here in the US, we have our own little worlds that we revolve in and some things are so culturally different as to seem foreign. YET I have found amongst people of like-faith, there are no cultural boundaries that don't melt away in the presence of that common bond.
Herman Melville put it this way, "We cannot live for ourselves alone. Our lives are connected by a thousand invisible threads, and along these sympathetic fibers, our actions run as causes and return to us as results."
So just why is it that I am a blogger? Now I'm addicted, I suppose. It's far easier for me to type quickly (110 wpm) than it is to write in a diary. The feedback is wonderful. When you write in a journal, you tuck it away and no one reads it (until perhaps you die and only if they can decipher your handwriting, which means anyone finding a journal of mine would be out of luck because even I don't understand my handwriting sometimes). I love reading the comments and knowing that other people can identify with something I've written or are encouraged, perhaps challenged. I still like the purgative action. I *do* have an active mind and the daily unloading of it frees me up for more. It saves the members of my household from having to hear me go on and on about black-holes, food additives, why they should eat their broccoli, etc.
And with that, I'll have written 395 blogs... two in one day, but now I can go on to thinking about something else.
Why do you blog?
