Yeah, of course harsh comments hurt. Of course they do. It’s all got me thinking about what a blog is and why so many folks write them. I think I write one because I like to write, because I’m a writer by trade and by choice, because I like the practice of writing, because I see clearly what’s on my mind only when it escapes and sets up camp on a page or screen, because my brain needs an overflow trough.
Is it private? Of course not. Maybe it’s a dumb thing to do. Maybe there will be a tragic and solemn Museum of Blog History in 100 years, documenting the spectacular downfalls of those idiotic enough to have had blogs. It does sometimes feel like leaving your house unlocked and offering up whatever’s in the fridge to complete strangers, some of whom are very kind and help you clean the toilets.
In the early years of blogging, some people referred to the phenomenon as “escribitionism.” I don’t know how accurate that is. That to me suggests that writing, as one ex- and very brief beau told me, is “ultimately a vain activity.” I just can’t subscribe to that. That it’s vain until it’s perfection. Until it’s high art. Until it’s Chekhov and Hemingway and Woolf. When it transforms into something else.
If you blog, well…why do you? If you don’t, well…what do you make of it?
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