"Blogging is pure vanity." ~ Unknown
Really, if you stop and think about it, personal blogging is a very strange activity, a remarkable combination of narcissism and exhibitionism. When I say personal blogging, I don't mean the wealth of excellent and valuable issue blogs, subject blogs, or informational blogs that are out there. I mean blogs like this one, which seem to serve no other purpose than to give their authors a sounding board on the world stage.
Additionally, there's the fact that the writers of personal blogs seem to have no qualms about inviting the world at large into their personal space. I wonder if the blog writers hid their diaries when they were kids? I certainly did. Although I can maybe roll with the first two adjectives, since I don't think anything I write about has any significance in the scheme of things, and I'm certainly not writing this blog to put myself on display, it is the sharing of my private mental space that is difficult for me.
If I am such a private person, why am I writing this blog? I have several reasons. One reason is that, as someone with some pretensions towards being a professional writer and editor (no, I'm not working on the Great American Novel), writing a blog is good practice for me. The only way to hone a skill is to use it. Another reason is that not everything I plan to say will be of a boring personal nature. Although I have no ambition to join "the blogosphere" with my Flapdoodle, occasionally I feel moved to comment on events and people of our times. Maybe someone might find those thoughts interesting. At the very least, when someone asks what I think about something, I can say, "Oh, I wrote a blog post about that not too long ago," instead of having to stand there and make an intelligent argument off the top of my head.
My final reasons are therapeutic. I'm trying to work on my discipline, and setting myself the goal of writing a short post every day is part of it. Also, if I can get comfortable sharing my private thoughts and feelings with a blog, maybe someday I'll be able to stop living in my own head to such an extreme degree?
