Blogging

I decided to blog for the same reason I imagine a lot of people did: a bit of self-importance, a touch of narcissism and finally, some need to jot my thoughts down, to write. How meaningful is all this? What is the importance of these musing in the grand scheme of things?

I think that at the end of the day, I have to admit that I am small, not significant in the grand scheme of things. Like any one grain of sand on the beach when compared to the vastness of the entirety of the beach and the almost infinite number of grains that exist, I, as an individual represent something very, very small. Of course, I am significant to myself and I like to think I am significant in my own world or should I say my own little corner of the whole world.

So, why blog?

Stephen King is quite a prolific writer. Apparently when he is writing a novel, he sits down every day and writes 2,000 words. That is discipline; he sticks to a regime. If I followed a regime like that, where would I be?

Aristotle has been dead for thousands of years and yet, we continue to read his words. The writer lives on; his words have endured beyond his lifetime. Writing is... ah, some hope of being eternal? Or at least enduring beyond the span of one's own lifetime.

Today I did some minor research on the Net using Google. Various reports show that there are over 110 million blogs worldwide however only 7 to 8 million of them are active. That turns out to be approximately 7% of all blogs that are active. Another report specifically for the blog site Wordpress showed the site may have 5.5 million blogs but only around 170,000 of them are active. That is only 3% of the blogs being active. Clearly the majority of people create blogs on some sort of whim but fail to follow through with their idea. Obviously the idea of writing seems attractive but the actual process of writing, or should I say the work, turns out to be less appealing.

Yes, there is personal discipline like Stephen King but in the end, you do it because you like it. Yes, Yo Yo Ma has discipline but I am going to have to guess he actually likes playing the cello.

Why am I going to blog? I like to blog? I have a compulsion to blog? I am just plain nuts?



Afterthought
Being able to freely publish one's own thoughts, does this lead to poorly planned essays reaching publication when they merit more work?

2010-06-07