Why blog? A question revisited.

Yesterday Saphron left a couple of comments. (Thanks!)

She posed several good questions. First:

Hmmm, you do like to bring back those posts from the past, don't you? :D

In following several other blogs I've gotten to know the writers much like I "know" some the authors whose books I've read. I remember the earlier posts, as if they were the opening chapters in a book. Authors of books often provide foreshadowing. I'm good at picking that up. But on a blog, it seems as if foreshadowing still occurs, but it is more unintentional. Blogging is often a way of self-discovering what we really think is important. I like to point out to a blogger what they said in earlier posts. It shows that 1) I'm listening, and 2) Hey, you've answered your own questions!, and 3) You're achieving your personal goals!

What Saphron pointed out was that I even do it on my own blog. I check for internal consistency, personal growth, and inside jokes. ;-)





Her next question really got me thinking...

Did you ever think you'd be blogging this much? I'm glad you do; you're always ready with a good dose of truth and beauty.

I never thought I'd blog daily. I really started this blog so that I could comment on my daughter's blog. I still comment on her blog, but in blogging I've found an outlet for sharing my thoughts, pictures, poetry, and humor in an unanticipated manner. Like Moses and the shepherds, I was curious, involved, and subsequently blessed.

Saphron also provides the key to why I continue to blog: personal feedback. Writers need their readers. The positive feedback I get from my readers provides me with the motivation to keep writing. I've thought for some time that I'd like to write, but I could never get motivated enough to do the daily work involved, until I met "blogging." But it's not really blogging that provides the motivation, it's the response from other bloggers. So, here's a shout out Thanks for all who have read, and especially to those who have commented and in doing so have encouraged me to keep writing and sharing.




And Saphron's third "question:"

The poem is interesting. I always wonder about those tiny-slice-of-life poems, how the poet ever decides on that one moment.

"The Delight is in the Details!" (There, another self-referential comment.) I think poets, like all writers, pick the moments that they remember. That's how I do it. Much of writing is at least semi-autobiographical. What's important we remember. Since most writers want to write about what's important, they write about what they can remember: the details, the vignettes, slices-of-life that seem to contain import. Someone said, "I really don't know what I think about a topic until I write about it." I think that's a lot of what writing is: self-discovery.

A lot of what reading is then becomes co-discovery as we learn with fellow authors about being human, becoming more human, and enjoying the companionship of other like-minded travelers who are willing to "talk" as we walk shoulder to shoulder through life.

Short questions. Long answers. Thanks for asking.