Why I blog...

The first known "blog" was written by a Englishman from 1660. For nine years this man wrote daily. He wrote about what he ate, things he did, places he went, and and things he lived through. His writings were honest, entertaining, thrilling, but usually boring.

That man was Samuel Pepys.

It appears that Mr. Pepys never showed his writings to anyone. He just wrote for himself, to chronicle his life, to remember things that went right and the things that went wrong. To Mr. Pepys, writing down these things made them important. By writing them down he had a new way to look at them.

When I began this blog it was a way for me to journal. I had never been good at journaling on pen and paper. Maybe it was how mundane it was, maybe it proves that we live in an age where we cannot function without being connected to an electronic device, maybe it just wasn't for me.

I found myself thinking last week about this. Do I care if people read my blog?

Nope.

Yes, it'd be nice to connect with others, and I enjoy when people comment, but I blog as a way to get things off my chest.

I sometimes read blogs where people seem to be clearly talking to potential readers, and that is fine, it is what works for them. But, I blog so I can express the thoughts I have spinning around in my mind.

There is a slight addictiveness to this blogging thing. It almost makes me want to get things off my chest - the silly and the serious. I wonder if there had been blogs when I was in high school and my mom was always begging me to journal my thoughts about such and such if I would have been less reluctant to do so.

I guess the bottom-line is that I enjoy this blogging thing, it's journaling, with the benefit of being able to include pictures, and connect with people if I so wish. Either way, I enjoy it, and it feels good to use this as a place to process my life!