But why?

Sunday, August 31, 2008

Oh my.

In atypical fashion for my not-so-social self, I was out amongst my fellow humans this past Friday. The topic of blogs was broached. I confessed to possessing several, but could not bring myself to hand over the addresses when pressed for them.

It's not that I entertain blissful notions that I'm alone in this ether world. I know the rest of the Net-surfing population is free to stumble upon my ramblings and read them at will. I don't mind it, really, so long as that idea is kept at arm's length. Anyone from Seattle and Szechuan and Santa Fe can read my silliness, drop in a comment if they wish, even tell me I'm a low and tasteless nincompoop. All of that is wholly acceptable.

But the notion of people I know reading my food-obsessive nonsense?

Unthinkable.

Why? Because we are judged by the words we use and how well we use them. I could no more hand over such an invitation to find all my flaws than I could gather spotlights around my lackluster body and pose for inspection.

Let me repeat: unthinkable.

So why do I blog? Oh, that's ever so simple. I blog because I've developed a nasty habit of summing up my life and experiences in syllables. It is a repository of memories. Diary. Journal. Scrapbook. (In particular, in this blog I hope to keep track of restaurants I've enjoyed as well as ones I'd do better to avoid in the future.) Why do I choose an online forum rather than a private set of paper pages? Again, the reasons are simple: 1) paper ages, crinkles, and gets lost even as the messy handwriting upon it becomes ever harder to decipher and 2) paper takes up space. Paper is a physical burden I don't intend to cultivate any longer.

With its personal posting options Livejournal fulfills my needs far better than Blogger, but LJ doesn't allow nearly so easy an insertion of photos in posts. I like to fill my food ramblings with images, so for this topic Blogger it had to be.

It never occurred to me before Friday evening that many (perhaps even most) people writing blogs are actually seeking to be read by others. Ahh, everyday I learn a new and surprising thing about this strange world and the creatures that inhabit it. They are so very different from myself.

What do we have in common?

We all must eat.

~L