blogging

When I started this blog one of my good friends told me that she, "Hated people who blog because they think that everyone wants to hear about them." And I wondered to myself, Is that why I started this blog? Do I want people to read about me? Do I want to be walking down the street one day and hear someone say, "Hey, did you read That Girl's blog today? Damn, she's witty."

Then last night on the Daily Show Jon Stewart made fun of blogs. And one of the early developers of the internet (not Al Gore) rethought the value of the internet because so much misinformation is being disseminated among blogs. So I thought to myself, why do I have a blog? Why don't I just keep a journal? Am I so narcissistic as to think that my ideas should be thrown out to wind for anyone to read and comment on?

So in an effort to understand the rationale behind blogging I did what I do best, a little research. It was as easy as typing "why blog?" into Google and nosing around a bit. Here is what I found:

• Some people blog because they like to feel a connection to the larger world. One person quoted Melville: "We cannot live for ourselves alone. Our lives are connected by a thousand invisible threads, and along these sympathetic fibers, our actions run as causes and return to us as results."
• Some blog as a way to get thoughts down and break the ice for other types of writing.
• Some see it as a way to get voices heard that are often left out of dominant conversation.
• Some do it as a creative exercise.
• Some blog because they like to read other blogs and it is a way to reciprocate.
• Some blog as a virtual calendar of life's events.
• Some blog to stoke their ego.
• Some do it as a way to keep family and friends updated on their lives.
• Some blog to share pictures, artwork, poetry, fiction, non-fiction that they might otherwise not publish.

So there you go, a few reasons people blog. But back to me, because, after all, this is my blog. I think I blog as a way to get thoughts out of my head in order to clear my head for my dissertation. It is hard to write about student identity when I am thinking about poverty or feminism or the election or little j's recent tantrum or the fact that I haven't had time to talk to my girlfriends in the last month. And why do I do it on a blog? Maybe because I hope that somewhere, someone is going through something similar and can add their thoughts, that there are other people like me struggling with thoughts, ideas, life and figuring out how to keep everything going while moving a hundred miles an hour.