Blogging About Blogging

I get weary of the blogger angst that people publicly put themselves through. It's really pretty simple: if you don't like blogging, then delete your blog. And if you do enjoy blogging, then blog proudly and quicherbichin'. There's no shame in it and people really don't like witnessing your public self-flagellation. All that tells me is that you secretly detest bloggers, but you're afraid not to be part of some imagined club. And that tells me that you have some unresolved issues hanging over from high school or something...

I see blogging as a way of connecting with like minds through a shared medium. More importantly, people are not only writing again, people are reading again. Who cares why or how? It's happening. While it may appear that those who write the most seem to have the least to say, who cares? They're thinking, they're expressing themselves and they're reading other people expressing themselves. What's so wrong about that? Do you remember the vast wasteland of daytime TV and the after-the-rush hour-sitcoms of the 80s and 90s?

I used to spend my off hours writing in my journals. Unfortunately, all 57 volumes are in a bankers box in the garage, accumulating dust. No one reads them and, quite possibly, no one ever will. What's the point? Sure, I expressed myself in them, but most of that was the self-pitying, "No one understands me!" kind of crap that one usually finds in personal journals, because I thought they would never be read. Now I think twice before I do that. Writing and reading blogs is helping me to become a less self-indulgent writer. It forces me to hone my language skills, too.

Recently, I discovered a new blog called, Admissible Banter, and read,

"It's great to know you've touched someone with one of your stories or given someone a new outlook on a tough issue they may be faced with. Sometimes it's the reader that's able to help you through a situation you've written about. Blogging can often be therapeutic for both the reader and the blogger."

I've found this to be true time and again. Although I've met only a few of my readers in person, there is a community that is ever-growing and ever-changing, and when I write about things like our recent scare with the cat, I know there are people out there who will lend their support.

I suppose I could see the glass half-empty, recalling nothing but the trolls, stalkers and asshats and their asinine comments, but that's not my style. Compared to the good stuff, that crap is almost non-existent.

I don't know what the future of blogging will be. I see evidence of an on-going evolution, but as yet I cannot put my finger on it. Blogging may very well be a craze that will pass out of style, but I suspect that only the blogs of people who really enjoy exchanging ideas will survive. And that's fine with me.