|
|
| | I promised Emily quite a
few months ago that I would post some of my considerations on the
subject of blogging. I've been slow to honor that promise, not because
I've forgotten it, but because I find the subject more and more
perplexing for me.
As far as I can tell, there are three good reasons for blogging - 1.
you have knowledge, experience, or writing abilities that are worth
sharing; 2. you find blogging a pleasant and unobstrusive way of
keeping up with friends who live at some distance from you; 3. your
blog is a forum for active, intelligent, and courteous discussion of
topics particularly interesting to you and likeminded friends (and foes).
Two clarifications: 1. Some people maintain travel blogs, or wedding
blogs, to keep friends apprised of ongoing, important events. I would
categorize those blogs under the second reason: it's a convenient tool
for communicating with interested parties. 2. I'm not saying it's wrong
to have a blog "just 'cause" you're fond of writing "in public" as it
were: done well, it can be a place for sharing valuable thought and
experience and for drawing people together, which would place it under
my first reason.
There are lots of bad reasons for blogging and lots of bad blogging
habits. Some bloggers have been
unwillingly persuaded into the activity by well-meaning friends. Some just want a place to rant, or vent, or complain to the world at large
when the mood strikes. For others it's a social thing: they have blogs
because everyone else does (that need not be bad in itself, but it's very subject to abuse). Some blogs are a
facade: a place for their owner to re-tell his (or more often her)
life in a more satisfactory way. Some blogs are substitutes (or
pretenses) for friendship: owners pour out their personal
lives to the whole world wide web, yet won't say two words to their
next door neighbor. Some blogs function as one more way for their
owners to listen to themselves talk, and can descend all too easily
into forums for gossip, malice, self-defense, self-pity, or
self-congratulation. Any of all of these can come into play if one loses sight of a good
purpose for blogging, if one's original purpose is nullified, or
becomes increasingly difficult to achieve.
My circumstances have changed, and I'm in the throes of hashing
out a good reason to continue blogging, or a new philosophy of
blogging, or a new method of blogging, or some combination of all three. When I began this blog (summer
of 2003) it was for the clearly stated purpose of keeping in touch with
family and distant friends while I was in college. That circle of
friends and family was very small then - barely ten people, I
think. Blogging was nowhere near as big a thing as it is now: most
people didn't even know the word yet. I enjoyed it: there was no
compulsion to be brilliant or fascinating: people just wanted to know what was going on as I began college. Also, as I was coming
into a strange school and had no connections or acquaintances (I didn't
know a single person at Campbell), none of my schoolmates were reading
my blog. Therefore I didn't have to worry about betraying secrets, fostering
misunderstandings, misrepresenting situations, or talking at someone. It was much simpler than it's become! Now I'm a senior, I know lots of people, and because of the explosion of blogging anybody can find my blog quite easily by following a link off a link off a link - the little freshman girl I chat with in the lunch line, the rude guy who sits beside me in CUW, the nearly complete stranger who decides to wander up and put his arm around me, the professor whose views or methods I object to - anyone. I'm constantly startled by how many almost-strangers find my blog.
So, all of a sudden, I hesitate to talk about the people I'm around or the things I'm involved with - more or less my original subjects. For one, because I strongly object to pouring out the story of my life to strangers (I immensely prefer genuine friendship that has to be sought and fought for); secondly, because it's so, so perilously easy to provoke misunderstanding; and thirdly, because I can't help feeling some sense of obligation to a wider audience. I may have started off talking to a little cluster of people around the hearth, but I've ended up in an assembly hall, where my voice can be heard across the room!
Addendum to the second reason: talking about myself and my own activities in full view of the people I live and work with is just - well, like telling them their own stories. It seems rude, redundant, and again, full of potential pitfalls. A chance phrase can imply a judgment, an opinion, or an attitude I didn't intend, or didn't recognize, and plant the seeds of hurt and mistrust that I never know about.
(Another side note: That part, by the way, really worries me: I've encountered outbursts of spite and vanity on the blogs of almost-strangers that put a complete end to my interest in their friendship; yet they never had the chance to defend themselves or ask forgiveness. There are evils attendant on cheap intimacy.)
As I'm not traveling anywhere exotic, or thinking anything brilliant, or writing anything witty or wonderful or even generally interesting (how many people really want to know how busy this past week was, and how hard my counterpoint assignment is, and how tired I am, or how many hours I practiced?) - well, what DO I blog about?
Things of the utmost triviality and unimportance, very personal experiences involving nobody else, or completely abstract issues seem to be the only safe possibilities!
And yet with all that, I know it's possible to do it well, because so many of you do. Allow me to express my heartiest thanks and admiration to the many of you who maintain blogs at once tactful and appropriately reserved, and simultaneously charming, informative, and intelligent. 
| | | Posted 10/23/2006 12:03 AM - 1 view - 11 comments
- recommend
  - recs0
- give stars
- votes0
- share
- email
 - sent0
|
|
Lyss is going to hear the real vacuum dance music over Thanksgiving . . . .