Some random, half finished, half expressed thoughts on my blog:
I was just thinking about my blog. For a tiny moment, I romaticised that I'll persist with it for years, and in two, five, (ten?) years from now, I could look back at my first posts, and recall what I was thinking or how I felt at that time (i.e. now).
I also thought, that this is basically what people keep diaries for. At least when I was a child if I kept a diary it was for this purpose, for me (and only me) to look back on. I wasn't much of a diary writer, and over the years I've lost anything like that anyway, perhaps that will be my blogs fate.
I'm still trying to figure out my blogs purpose; i.e. what it is to me and what I want to do with it. I haven't even really decided 'who' I'm posting to - is it really 'Dear Diary'? Or is it just more like a students notebook, filled with tidbits of knowledge, learning and half discovered ideas. People who write books, technical articles or even news tend to know their target audience, but I don't, and half assume it is both no-one and everyone. At the moment it's starting to sort of be a bit of both 'diary' and 'notebook', and that is OK, but I worry..
With regular monotiny I regret things that I post to public forums. Often I make mistakes, say things wrong, or let people know 'what I really think' - all things that have a tendancy to upset or alienate many people. I guess I can take solace in the fact that at least if I post something I regret in my blog, I can remove it, or change it - but I worry about that too, i.e. the 'ethics' of changing what you write. I have made many changes to entries in my blog since it began less than a month ago - all spelling, grammar or formatting corrections though, the only exception has been removing junk comments.
You know, in life people have many 'faces'. I'm a different person for different people. I behave differently in different circles. I'm not always the same person at work, at home, at my parents place, or online. Obviously this is not true, I am only the one person, but the way that different people would 'perceive' me would vary quite a bit I imagine, even amongst those who 'know' me.. I'm sure this is the same for every person. It begs the question though, who am I when I post to my blog? Am I John at work, John at the pub, John amongst friends, John by himself at home on his computer, John to his family, John to a public forum, John in the classroom, I'm sure the list goes on..
I think that I'm the only real 'user' of my blog, the rest is back to google to send people this way if they are looking for something that I might shed some light on.. I can't wait until everyone has a blog, then we can really find out about information overload.
I guess it'll be interesting to see what happens. I wonder who the first person I upset will be, and how long until I find out about it.. if at all. I wonder if my blog will do me any 'good' or any 'harm'.
Another thing that I worry about is 'quality' of posts, and 'signal to noise'. I've already pretty much decided that I'm all for noise. I expect I'll spew oddles of noise at my blog, in the hope that everynow and again there will be something useful or thought provoking in there, either for myself or someone else. Sort of sounds like a million monkeys on a million keyboards - and it probably is, but only one monkey, so I'll need one million times infinity before I come up with the entire works of Shakespeare.. but I can make a start: “What sorrow craves acquaintance at my hand, that I yet know not?“
John.
One reason to persist with an online blog rather than a private diary is to keep in touch* with people like me who don't catch up with you enough.
* keep in touch in an odd, mostly one directional kind of way, that is.