WHY A BLOG?

After composing three rather lengthy blogs I am faced with the primary question, Why a blog? And in parentheses, Who writes blogs? What is my purpose for writing a blog? Just what IS a blog, anyway?

Before initiating this blog I was interested in creating my own web site. The purpose of having a site was twofold: 1) to have a place where I could get my writing out to an Internet audience 2) to have a sort of filing system where I can keep my writing. I found that constructing and then maintaining a website was too much for my technologically feeble brain. Blogging sites made it very easy to design a spot and I figured this was just as good as a web site. But later, after posting some items, I became confused as to the purpose and function of a blog. After googling around for definitions and then reading other blogs, this is what I came up with.

It seems originally blogs were a running commentary on current events. An open dialogue on certain subjects or particular issues. Unlike mainstream media and their one-sided approach to journalism, blogs became an open source of information and their presence invited interaction among its writers and readers. From this emerged political forums and action groups with reporting that reflected the groups particular point of view, often coming close to muckraking tales and blatant propaganda. Today, the power of blogs can be seen when their stories eventually become breaking news stories covered by the mainstream media.

In browsing through different blogs I found it had another purpose as a simple diary. Bloggers posted entries about their activities in any particular day, week, or month. Sometimes a running commentary on a vacation trip. Maybe the reflections of an individual on any important personal event. Those that leave comments appear to be friends or certainly regular readers of that persons blog.

Then there are others that are specific to a certain subject. So we have blogs for cooks, blogs for woodworkers, blogs for knitters, blogs for dreamers, the list is endless. A kind of forum for sharing ideas and experiences. As an educational tool I found blogs that were used by an instructor to share his/her subject with the students in his class. As a teacher myself I can certainly see the advantage of taking a topic out of the classroom and discussing it in a less constrained environment.

For myself, I don’t seem to fit into any of these categories. It’s just me. Sticking it out there. Which seems a little presumptuous. Like writing a poem, putting it in a bottle, casting it out into the ocean with the intent that someone, somewhere will pick it up, read it, and think, “Wow! This is really worthwhile!”

So why a blog? Why a duck?

Groucho: Now here is a little peninsula, and here is a viaduct leading over to the mainland.
Chico: Why a duck?
Groucho: I'm all right. How are you? I say here is a little peninsula, and here's a viaduct leading over to the mainland.
Chico: All right. Why a duck?
Groucho: I'm not playing Ask-Me-Another. I say, that's a viaduct.
Chico: All right. Why a duck? Why a-- why a duck? Why-a-no-chicken?
Groucho: Well, I don't know why-a-no-chicken. I'm a stranger here myself. All I know is that it's a viaduct. You try to cross over there on a chicken, and you'll find out why a duck.

So I don't know why a blog. I'm a stranger here and all I know is that they call this blogging. Maybe it’s my bottle of poems floating with the ocean currents. Or maybe it’s just another file cabinet.