Why I Blog

Never before have so many people with so little to say said so much to so few - taken from here

I agree with this quote even though (or especially because) I have three blogs.

I have been asked a few times why I run a blog and when it comes down to it, I think it is mostly out of narcissism, that is, this blog is sometimes more for me than anyone else.

A month into my blogging hobby I found a nice quote how blogging it is either narcissistic or liberating and it is possible to put on a fake persona. I think that still stands. It is quite possible to put on a fake appearance online. In 2007 when I started, I think I was trying too hard to appear smart to others. Over the years I really haven't built much of an audience (which is no surprise as really who wants to read this?) I have stopped worrying so much what others may think of me and so perhaps has found my natural voice a bit more. Only the stray post has really generated a few hits on this site, but I really stopped caring about that, and used this site mostly for my own reference, and sometimes to help someone else think through an issue.

The original goal of this blog was for me to write on issues that were burning inside me. Every now and again some issue might arise that I had an opinion on that I felt just had to be said, otherwise I would continual to have the same internal monologue with myself. This still happens, but maybe not as much, or if I do have some opinion on something that I think everyone has to know about, I generally don't get round to posting about it till the issue or the moment has past, so some of them never gets posted. As I write this, I have four posts in draft, and I am not sure if two of them will ever get published. One post waiting is a book review that will probably go up next week as I am pretty good at keeping up on my book reviews.

I rarely read new releases, although I do buy some, but my back log of books that I have on my "to read" pile is so big, that by the time I get to them, there have already been a million other reviews of that book online. The only real purpose of my book reviews is for me to remember, or to send onto someone I know to see if they wanted to read that book as well.

Another reason why I blog is to help me set my thinking straight on an issue. Sometimes I do not know exactly where my conclusions to a series will end. It is true that I have a vague idea where it will end up, but writing things down helps me to see the reasons why I thought something to be true.

So I blog because I sometimes have an strong idea on something that I think others just have to know about; or to keep my own person record of what books I have read; or to help me reason through an issue. If that is not self-centred, narcissism, then I do not know what is.

So I should really say thank you to the 17 people who have subscribed to this blog in Google Reader, and also thank you to the extra 5-30 other "people" that hit each article who may or may not be bots. Thanks for putting up with my ravings and ranting.

I am going to continual to try and post something every week, but when real life happens, that may not be realistic. I have also just added this blog to post in my Facebook stream, which may annoy some people who might consider it spam, but according to the stats for my phone blog, a few Facebook users seem to click through.