Why Bloggers Blog!

I have often heard people say, "I don't understand someone blogging about their thoughts and opinions -- why would someone think anyone else was interested in what they had to say." Others have stated, "I am not arrogant enough to think anything I had to say was important enough to express in a blog, believing someone else was going to read it." Both of these are valid positions. So why do I blog? For a while, since I am in the process of writing a book (even more arrogant on my part!) I stopped posting blogs on my site. Thinking that all of my writing time should be spent on my work, I decided this was superfulous, wasted energy. I have now reversed this position, even though I am still writing my book, and will now be blogging again regularly. As to why? Writing down my thoughts and opinions about life, current events, and today's world provides me a voice, whether anyone hears it or not. Once I capture my thoughts by writing them down, it is no longer the question of "what is the sound of one hand clapping" or something so elusive that can never be tangibly harnessed, but becomes a net that has caught the wonderings of my mind and collected them as living samples of who I am. Even if only I read them, my thoughts have been made real in a quirky scrapbook of mental meanderings. I "blog" for me, and I have missed organizing my thoughts into something real on paper which mirrors back to me what I believe. If along the way, my expressions happen to resonate with another human being on this earth, then that is a bonus on top of making my voice heard by me. Remember, no one set out calling himself a "philosopher," -- these men originally blogged orally, sometimes standing on a corner seeming only to talk to themselves; others wrote down their thoughts long before there were printing presses; and most gathered in villages and shared their thoughts and opinions amongst themselves, with some of these ideas trickling down from generation to generation. There is nothing new about blogging, just the instantaneous method -- in the past it was known as keeping a diary, journalling or philosophizing, and almost everyone did it in one form or another.