A very kind Alan McLeod praised the blog of your humble servant this weekend, so you should check him out tonight, as I just have. He raises the interesting (to me, at least) question of the dichotomy of blog-writing - do we do this because we are in some nature damaged, and need affirmation from the rest of the world ("look at me, ma!"), or is it intrinsically just the act of writing that is the most satisfying? Or is the boring answer "it's both"?
Lacking a "comments" button on this blog, I have to say my interest in writing here has remained pretty ensconced in the doing-it-for-the-sake-of-doing-it variety. There was a time when I would have used this thing for endless quests of romantic satisfaction, as I'm sure people from the old newsgroups would be more than happy to tell you, but those days are long gone. My own dating mishaps in the internet world taught me how little I knew about myself, and the depths of shallowness and cruelty of which I was capable. It doesn't help that half of the people on the internet in 1993 were certifiably insane, but I didn't do myself - or anyone else within email radius - any favors.
I think a lot of people have a blog for the same reason many of us look in the phone book to see our own names: proof that we actually exist. A web page is still a published thing, it is a piece of virtual paper accessible by billions, and if it is extant, than surely so are we. By the same token, it's almost impossible to explain to someone over 65 where The Blog lies in the grand scheme of things; most of them think it's a newsletter that everyone gets. You try to explain that not that many people actually read it, but anyone on Earth could do so at the click of a button. They still don't get it. To them, if you put your antidepressant habits or butt problems on the Web (like me and my sister tend to do), you might as well buy a full-page ad in the Chicago Tribune.
In the end, I think having a blog while you're trying to be a writer is like playing in a cover band while you're working on your first album. Sometimes it's enough to be out in front of people singing "Private Eyes" for a little recognition. It keeps you limber, strengthens your bar chords, and never allows you to gag on your own pretension.
Posted by at June 9, 2003 1:24 AM