The Thing About Blogs

You know how you read that “lead in” sometimes?  The thing about _______ is_______.  Well, I’m seeing disclaimers or comments about bloggers and/or  blogging more and more frequently.

So, I thought I’d write today a bit about blogging — or if I may be so bold, bloggers.  It seems that every blogger, now and then, writes a post about why they blog or why they’re not blogging — apologizing for not doing so and explaining how life’s gotten in the way.

So, here’s mine.  I blogged for a number of years — pretty much every day or so, early on.  I, too, thought life got in the way of blogging when I wasn’t able to blog.  I apologized for it from time to time.  But last year, right about this time, a very sobering reality hit me over the head like a ton of rocks.

The reality was that blogging had gotten in the way of life — not the other way around.  Blogging, reading, researching — reading, reading, reading — looking, looking, looking at stuff everywhere online got in the way of living.  It got in the way of real learning and it got in the way of real loving.  And so, today I can genuinely say: The thing about blogging is that it’s filled with unintended consequences.

From the beginning, I wanted to be a good blogger.  I wanted to both inform and entertain, encourage and inspire.  I still want those things.  But I want them to be  products of inspiration not compulsion.  And so, when I blog, you’ll know it’s inspiration and not compulsion.  Though I just might occasionally feel compelled to write something. ~wink~

Bloggers often feel a measure of guilt for not living up to a preconceived notion that blog writers have an obligation to produce something witty and informative every morning.  There’s this unspoken expectation that bloggers be at once fascinating and creative while writing blogs that appeal to the masses.  Every blogger soon discovers that one cannot possibly do that — at least not for more than a week.

Better blogs have enough personal anecdotes to fulfill readers’  desire for authenticity and personal identification — but enough generalization to assure anonymity of the blog subjects.  People want to identify with or see themselves in blogs — so long as no one else does.

Then there’s the great skill of mixing  reality and humility, a bit of sorrow, a bit of humour — with  a bit of cheeky cynicism thrown in to add spice.   In the end, all these are integral to a really good blog.  Trouble is, most of us are too busy living to spend enough time blogging to be that good.