Why do I blog?

Pssst. There’s a picture of a baboon’s rear end on this post.

Thanks for reading . But it’s less “echo chamber” than “preaching to the choir” (and it’s a small choir).

Look, I understand there’s different goals. That’s fine. But inversely, I find it’s a battle to establish that my dissatisfactions are valid.

There’s something I call the “One Reader Argument”. It’s when somebody says “I’m happy to spend hours and hours writing away if I have just one reader in the whole world, one other soul in the entire universe who finds my expressions have meaning for them. That makes it all worthwhile”. Great! I’m not – I wouldn’t be happy to have just a single reader. I won’t tell you that you’re wrong in your feelings. But don’t tell me I’m wrong in mine.

That is, I find there’s a frustrating undercurrent to blog evangelism, that everyone *should* be content to write for a tiny audience. And those who aren’t, who say blogging doesn’t work for them, or almost anyone in the same situation, are unreasonable (i.e. they *should* be happy writing for the tiny audience). This is a very unpleasant counterpart to the promotion of blogging.

LOL Tracy — my Dad used to have a phrase for showing off in public: “showing your ass”, which I think he took from this sort of display. He applied it to actions like peeling rubber when leaving a parking lot and other juvenile demonstrations. Maybe blogging fits that model, to some degree.

Seth, I won’t deny you your pity party, I just don’t understand why you want to live there. If something doesn’t work for me, I change it, change my expections, or move on. Without a doubt blogging is not the perfect end-all of global communications. But it is a tool you can use.

Thanks to both of you for reading and commenting.

[...] Time to ask yourself, “Why do I blog?” Then evaluate the likelihood of achieving your goals. Then get on it. [...]