Man, what a relief, to be ahead of the curve by ten days. Yesterday's Living Section in the Oregonian had a fairly extensive story about blogs, a.k.a. web logs, which this here thing is. So if I hadn't decided to start HinesSight on January 2, I'd be behind the curve right now. Instead, I'm ten days ahead of the (Oregonian) curve. Of course, I'm years behind the weblog pioneers, so from that standpoint I'm way behind the curve. Well, I guess I'm right where I'm supposed to be, which is preparing to send out emails letting folks know about HinesSight.
The Oregonian article has some nice quotes from bloggers about why they blog. I can relate to most of them, based on my vast ten day experience, during which I basically have been blogging to myself (haven't gone blind yet, and it's so much fun). My own "why I blog" reason, so far, goes something like this: usually I share only parts of myself with people, figuring that if they saw the whole Me, they'd freak out in some fashion ("I didn't know Brian thought that...or did that...or believed in that; gosh, now I don't know what to think of him"). Well, a weblog along the lines of the title of the Oregonian piece--"The World According to Me"--gives you the whole shebang, the blogger from top to bottom, inside to out. OK, not completely, because total transparency is just too much for most people. I don't even want to know everything about me, so I can't expect others to want to.
Still, it is liberating to start breaking down the divisions between friends, and acquaintances, and co-workers, and neighbors, and relatives, and everyone else. Let it all hang out so the world can see it--that's blogging. It forces you to decide what is most important each day, or, at least, what pops up to the surface of your consciousness that you want to share. It makes you think about what you're experiencing, and how the various parts of your life fit together. So...we blog on.
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