Why Do You Blog?

This post has been swimming in my head for a few weeks, and it maybe time to haul it in and pin it up to the wall. As I start writing it, I am quite certain I have written it at least once before, but sometimes it maybe necessary to write it all down. Again.

I blog, because I love to write. I love what wrestling with words does for me. I write because I have no choice. These quiet bouts with expression help me stay sane. I often think about how difficult it must be for people who store up their thoughts and hope to deal with them on their own.

I blog for the same reasons I teach. I believe in communication and expression. I tell my students that all too often people build walls, because they are afraid of what people my say. But the walls we build soon become unyielding and grotesque. Huge edifices impossible to see beyond and impractical to tear down. We spend our lives behind the shadows, unaware of what lies beyond. Writing allows me to remove the brinks one-by-one.

One may argue that writing and blogging are mutually exclusive. That public writing/journaling is a narcissist act, a desperate writer looking for validation. While this maybe true, who doesn’t love a series of comments approving our thoughts, but I see blogging as more than that. If nothing else I see blogging as a great way to catalogue all my thoughts. I may never be committed enough, or talented enough to generate a novel, but in my own way I am documenting my life in these posts.

For better or for worse, each posts paints a tiny part of who I am. When I was mired in political angst, my mother gave me the best advice, “Try and write something that will help people.” I am not sure who she meant I was to help, but I see writing and blogging as great tools to help us all realize that we need not be alone.

Photo by Hypergurl - Tanya Ann

The human experience can be so complicated. I just hope that by confessing these thoughts in this corner of cyberspace, I can help someone out there understand that we are all connected, that we all share similar thoughts. If each one of us experiences a pixel of a shared consciousness, I hope my words, these posts can help us see the bigger picture.