January 16, 2006
Why Do I Blog?
"Why do you do it?"
This was the first question my girlfriend (or life partner, as she now prefers to be called) asked me when I told her about this blog. Good question, I thought, but I haven't ever really answered it. It isn't for the money, because there isn't any. But it still wouldn't be for the money if there were any in it, so why on earth do I do it?
First, a confession: I have also always wanted to be published, and have written several articles which failed to make it past the editor's desk. Unfortunately for the tyranny of established media, the internet now allows me to be my own editor, and unleash my copy on anyone foolish enough to request it. So frustrated journalism is part of the reason for my blog, and perhaps for many others out there.
But I think the most important reason for me is that writing has always had a way of clarifying my thinking. Writing slows down my thoughts and forces them to account for themsleves, which they are frequently unable to do. So writing down my thoughts helps me to clarify them. At work, or during my spells at university, for example, I have often had my deepest insights about things while writing about them, not before.
So I recognise writing as a cognitive and emotional tool. But outside of work and formal academic learning, I have always lacked an excuse to use this tool. I kept a diary for a long time at school and in my undergraduate years, and resuscitated the habit a year ago while doing a spell at university in Hong Kong. There is, however, something unbearably lonely about a diary.
It is difficult, and perhaps impossible, to write without having an audience in mind. As Martin Amis wrote: "...someone watches over us when me write. Mother. Teacher. Shakespeare. God." For a time I imagined sharing my diary with important poeple in my life, and at times I have in fact done so. At other times I have imagined sharing it with my children, if I ever have any, so that perhaps they can have more insight into the human behind the Parent.
In the end the effort required for writing in my diary was too large to justify the flimsy returns of imagined future sharing with hypothetical others, and indeed the effort grew each year as my hands became increasingly unfamiliar with pens and paper.
It was only a matter of time before a frustrated journalist and lonely diarist like me would latch on to the idea of blogging, and this is the result. I enjoy being able to write whatever I feel like writing about, and I am perfectly happy to accept the possibility that absolutely nobody cares, because the mere possibility that someone will read it, and someone will care, even just a little bit, feels... nice.
So now it's you who watches over me when I write.
This was the first question my girlfriend (or life partner, as she now prefers to be called) asked me when I told her about this blog. Good question, I thought, but I haven't ever really answered it. It isn't for the money, because there isn't any. But it still wouldn't be for the money if there were any in it, so why on earth do I do it?
First, a confession: I have also always wanted to be published, and have written several articles which failed to make it past the editor's desk. Unfortunately for the tyranny of established media, the internet now allows me to be my own editor, and unleash my copy on anyone foolish enough to request it. So frustrated journalism is part of the reason for my blog, and perhaps for many others out there.
But I think the most important reason for me is that writing has always had a way of clarifying my thinking. Writing slows down my thoughts and forces them to account for themsleves, which they are frequently unable to do. So writing down my thoughts helps me to clarify them. At work, or during my spells at university, for example, I have often had my deepest insights about things while writing about them, not before.
So I recognise writing as a cognitive and emotional tool. But outside of work and formal academic learning, I have always lacked an excuse to use this tool. I kept a diary for a long time at school and in my undergraduate years, and resuscitated the habit a year ago while doing a spell at university in Hong Kong. There is, however, something unbearably lonely about a diary.
It is difficult, and perhaps impossible, to write without having an audience in mind. As Martin Amis wrote: "...someone watches over us when me write. Mother. Teacher. Shakespeare. God." For a time I imagined sharing my diary with important poeple in my life, and at times I have in fact done so. At other times I have imagined sharing it with my children, if I ever have any, so that perhaps they can have more insight into the human behind the Parent.
In the end the effort required for writing in my diary was too large to justify the flimsy returns of imagined future sharing with hypothetical others, and indeed the effort grew each year as my hands became increasingly unfamiliar with pens and paper.
It was only a matter of time before a frustrated journalist and lonely diarist like me would latch on to the idea of blogging, and this is the result. I enjoy being able to write whatever I feel like writing about, and I am perfectly happy to accept the possibility that absolutely nobody cares, because the mere possibility that someone will read it, and someone will care, even just a little bit, feels... nice.
So now it's you who watches over me when I write.
