I’m sure every blogger asks themselves this at least once during the time they maintain a blog. Why do I do this? What is this for? What do I want to accomplish? I know I certainly have thought about the purpose of this blog time and again. And mull as I might, it really is just a collection of my thoughts, observations, and experiences. I’ve considered attempting to fit more into a theme and have sets of topics I talk about, like feminism or the Asian-American experience and whatnot, but I’ve found that those get expressed on my way to sorting out other thoughts in my head. So though I do cover certain broad areas, there are none that I am willing to sift out of possible future entries purely to “brand” my writing.
The result is a mish-mash of my opinions and stories that vary depending on how tired I am when I’m writing, how much time I have to write, what else is going on around me at that time, and what I’m just plain “in the mood” to write about. Many a draft lay unwritten, with just a bullet point or two to remind me to write about that idea at some point. When I get in the mood, I can achieve a certain level of flow and write a few entries to store away. But all too soon, I get busy and use up those “back-up” entries and find myself needing to find something to write about for today, as each one comes along. With this sort of disorganization, it’s no surprise I haven’t been able to think of a set of topics I’d deal with. Instead, I just take things as they come along.
I saw a video today of Mena Trott talking about her view on what a blog is. What she said helped me realize that a blog for me is not for attracting high traffic or making money, but it’s a piece of my legacy. Assuming WordPress doesn’t go out of business and stop hosting my blog (and this made me wonder what happens if a blogging platform closes down – are all those blogs lost or transferred elsewhere?), what I write will remain there potentially eternally. It’s a sort of e-footprint I’m leaving on the internet so that I (or others) can look back on my life, my ideas, my experiences, and even my writing style. I can be reminded of how I was and others can learn of how I was. It can be a really useful tool for future generations to look upon to get a better idea of who I was and am and will become. And of course when I make an impact on the world, everyone will want to know the background of my person. 😛 Plus, it’ll be great to use to draw info from for my memoirs.
Mena’s talk also made me realize that blogosphere is a historian’s dream come true (though nightmare at the same time, having to sift through so much material), allowing them to get first-hand accounts of thousands upon thousands of people’s lives in this day and age, from all across the globe. Blogs are great resources for attitudes, cultural norms, fads, and all the fluctuations that societies undergo. Unofficially, the consolidation of blogs around the world is a sort of wiki project too – whereas Wikipedia captures information in an encyclopedia format for more formal records, wikiblogs capture the daily lives of a huge cross-section of the human population in an informal format.
And so, I have reaffirmed my reasons for blogging. So what are yours?
