Isn't Blogging Passé?

Some may scoff at the idea of a blog in the age of podcasts (give me a microphone and I shall move the world) and orkut (brave new world of the public inbox). Isn't blogging the ultimate ego-trip-- the outrageous fantasy that denizens of the Internet would mill by the millions to read your words of wisdom? Isn't it akin to delivering a sermon from a mount, nay an ivory tower, to subjects who are not deaf but indifferent? Isn't it an insular concept that is obsolete in this era of connection with anybody, anywhere, anytime?

All of the above accusations may be true, but isn't it also true that we are blogging mentally at every moment of every day? Of course, not every gedankenblog is worth remembering, let alone recording, but the occasional profundity of thought makes the exercise thoroughly worthwhile. At worst, a blog is a public diary that forces accountability on the man (or woman) who ever exclaimed, "My life is an open book!".

A friend once said that I should enjoy blogging since editorializing comes naturally to me. Although it was probably meant as a veiled criticism, I chose to accept it as a broader recognition of my latent journalistic talents, and my desire to become an editor. Unfortunately, I never recovered from the shock of learning that the daily task of writing three editorials was usually delegated to one of the sub-editors, and abandoned the dream by the time I joined college.

I hope these pages will give me a second chance to put down my thoughts and opinions, and share my joys and disappointments (with untold millions!), without resorting to the royal pronoun of a sanctimonious sub-editor.


AFTERTHOUGHT
"The time has come," the Walrus said,
To talk of many things:
Of shoes, and ships, and sealing-wax,
Of cabbages, and kings,
And why the sea is boiling hot,
And whether pigs have wings."
Lewis Carroll, Through the Looking Glass

No comments: