On blogging

Why do you blog? What does blogging mean to you? These are questions that have been posed a number of times over the past year that I have been treading the world of blogs or the blogosphere, as it has been termed. And before you misunderstand I would like to emphasize that these are not red carpet questions and that I am not a celebrity by any accounts. Just that as more and more people are being introduced to blogging and are displaying mild curiosity and even interest in some cases as to the purpose of maintaining a web-log (blog), I feel bloggers owe it to their readers to explain why week after week, post after post, they inflict such torture upon the poor souls who come visit their blogs.

Why do I blog? Well at the onset it seemed like a novel thing to do. Something to keep up with the times. Something that everyone was doing. To be trendy. To be hip. To be heard. It was the desire to say something meaningful, support a cause, protest against something else, and establish kinship among like-minded individuals. Where else would I find total strangers quote Yeats in response to my blogger name? Where would I find support, advice and goodwill from strangers across the globe willing to spend a few minutes of their day reading what I have to say? It is an amazing potpourri of thoughts, words, feelings, expression, opinions all coming together on the web. And to be a part of that movement feels quite uplifting.

With time blogging has started taking on newer meanings for me. It is like having an extended family of readers who keep coming back to read, to comment and to make themselves heard. Every post is like a conversation, a discussion, a time frame that I can revisit over and over again. Before I started blogging I secretly harbored the desire to be a writer. I guess there’s a little voice inside all of us that wants to be heard. And like most people that little voice thought the world needed to know what it had to say. And so I started blogging. When I blog it is like entering a world of my own, a world that I can paint in any hue, write about things that I believe in, and hope somewhere someone finds a reason to read it. The very same reason that I am searching for when I browse the internet to read other blogs. To find a kindred spirit. A connection. A reason to rejoice in someone’s joy, or share the pain, even if it is someone whom you will likely never meet. I blog to deal with my own frustrations, get over my bouts of depression, and stand up for what I believe in. I can share my thoughts with ease because it is easier to be open to strangers than it is with people who know you. Blogging brings us together. From far away places. A melting pot of myriad cultures, beliefs, expression. A place to connect and to learn and find a niche for that little voice within.

I blog because I enjoy blogging.