Why Do You Blog?

A few days ago as we were on our way home from the store, I decided to try my hand at talking my girlfriend into starting her own blog. But after proposing the idea she hit me with an entirely unexpected question - why should I blog?

Well, as I'm sure you can imagine, I was caught quite off-guard by such a response. Why? Well... because... obviously! I mean what kind of silly question is that? Psha! I said something, who can say what. My mental monkey was fixated on this idea of why. And I realized it was a very good question to ask =)

So, today's $7.56 question - why do you blog? What motivates you to do it? What inspires your topics? What keeps you posting? Or, if you are someone who has had no desire to blog, or have tried but lost interest, what pushed you away?

Since it wouldn't really be fair of me to ask this of others without providing my own thoughts, I guess I'll go first. The intricacies of the space time continuum also sort of mandate that the first post is... the first post. Stupid universe ;-)

"The Voices in My Head" isnt my first attempt at blogging as I've had personal and professional blogs before. None of them really amounted to much of anything, and if you want the honest truth, I'd have to say its because almost everything I wrote was done with a very conscious eye towards what other people were going to think about it. I wanted to sound intelligent, or insightful, or have some sort of deep inner meaning to everything I said, and the result was a perpetual unhappiness with anything I wrote - I constantly felt like it wasnt good enough to be public, and so the writing trailed off. I'm not really one to be overly self conscious, so I'm not really sure what inspired self doubt to that degree, but the result was that I couldnt keep a blog going for any length of time, nor did I have any interest in doing so. So if you're one of the people that has tried blogging only to let is slip to the wayside, I feel your pain *chest bump*.

At some point though, something changed, and since we're in the tree of trust, the change was likely inspired by my own personal frustration. I had stopped feeling like I was creative. I had stopped feeling like I was innovative. I had stopped feeling like... well... to be honest, I had any good ideas about anything at all. I started thinking back on the previous weeks and months and asked myself "what did you do that was of any interest to you" and all I could come back with was a shrug. Well that just wouldn't do now would it?

So when Penn State launched the blogs at PSU project, it was the perfect opportunity to dig myself out of my little mental rut and just say screw it. So I started writing again, but this time it was for me. I wasnt worried about who was reading, or what they'd think about it, because, quite frankly that hadnt gotten me much of anywhere. Obviously I hoped people would read and I hoped that people would enjoy what I had to say, but if not, I was going to do it anyway. And I wasnt going to hide my ridiculous humor, or stress out about the fact that my grammar is about as good as a confused third graders or that I can't spell "the" without spell check. I just let the words fly. Thats not to say I've had any good ideas within this virtual fortress of public solitude but the entire process has been a satisfying one. And besides, the way I see it, the only thing better than one post filled with nonsense is 40 posts filled with nonsense! Would it be cliche to say blogging makes me a better person? Probably - but I'd wear the t-shirt anyway.

So improving my happiness is probably a good enough explanation for why I blog, but its not the only one. Though blogging is not a required part of employment where I work, it is most certainly encouraged and supported. And if you hear the word blog enough you're either going to start one, or end up in a mental institution... or both *nervous laugh*. So there was that elemental of positive workplace peer pressure too.

But what keeps it all going? I mean its one thing to start a blog, but its another thing to keep posting to it. Only a few short sentences ago, I admitted that I've let other blogs slide before, yet I've been pretty active with this one. Whats different?

Well the therapeutic properties most certainly come into play again. I've come to enjoy writing, but just as importantly, I've come to enjoy the thought process behind finding things to write about. Its a very... invigorating experience for a lack of a better word. (As a side, I started thinking about that Seinfeld episode where Elaine reveals the little kicks - "'But I really enjoy [blogging]'. 'And thats not helping... Please. Not in my home'"). Ha!

There was also the "unexpected" side effect of stimulating the so called "conversation". Dave had a very thought provoking post a few weeks back that really got me to thinking about this in a way I hadnt before, but the blogging process has me talking to people I may never have talked with about things that we may never had a chance to talk about. I know, its sort of ridiculous that any self respecting IT person could have found the social aspect of blogging to be some sort of unexpected side effect. But thems the berries. People talking to me about my blog. I talk to others about theirs. And once those conversations start occuring, some really fantastic things can happen. Plus it makes you want to keep coming back for more =)

Anyway, that was all a typically Stubstyle verbose glimpse into why I blog and what keeps me coming back for more. No need to be as long winded as me, but you've got this cat curious.

Why do you blog? Or why do you not? Anonymous responses accepted =)

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