Blogging On

Why do you blog? This was a question a friend of mine recently asked me after paying a visit to this blog for the first time. I did not know how to answer him at that time so I simply said that I do a blog because it seemed like a perfectly fun thing to do.

Upon reflection later on, I made the realization that the answer I made seemed a little trite.

The fact is, I blog because not only is it a fun thing to do but also because it fulfills some basic need in me - the need to clarify, simplify, crystallize and record on paper or whatever medium, my thoughts and feelings on that bewildering complexity that is life and the experiences that makes living such a drag and a pain in the neck at one time and such a joyful, sublime and incandescent thing at another. That does, not even include the boring and better-forgotten points in between.

I do not have the illusion that my writings have literary merit. I am too much a realist for that. They are largely for my own benefit, a journal or diary of sorts. So if somebody else who reads them tells me that he or she finds them relevant, useful or, heaven forbid, fun, then I consider that a bonus.

Some write to entertain or inform others. Others write to convince or persuade. I write for myself - mostly, anyway.