“But, why do you blog?” my friend Ottavia asks.I tell her I do it because I like to. I add that if no one ever read my entries, I’d probably post them anyway.
“I’m really worried about this,” she says. “It’s different from letters, which bring you closer to others. This sounds so isolating.”
Outwardly, I explain that blogs could be the ultimate family album. A way to stay in touch even across continents. Bla, bla, bla. Inwardly, I consider this. I have always loved activities, such as reading or swimming, which I suppose could be considered reclusive.
Could she be right?
I guess it comes down to how I feel while I write.
Let’s see.
With my fingers on this keyboard, putting a thought down on the screen and editing it until it feels just right, I am quite possibly at my happiest.
As I sit here and write this, I am indeed alone in front of my computer. But I feel anything but lonely. Every corner of this room is full. I feel I’m writing for you. A warm, fluid, luminescent, interchangeable you.
My verdict is this: It’s romantic, in a dark, enticingly tormented, smoky, dense, impossibly slim, emotionally just out of your reach sort of way to say that writing is a lonely enterprise. But no matter what anyone tells you, its ultimate purpose is one of communion. Of sharing – even if the only person you are sharing it with is a hopeful, wistfully optimistic future version of you. Even if whom you share it with remains forever abstract.
Yes. A blog is an endeavor one embarks on alone. It’s only isolating if that’s how the writer feels. This writer does not.
6 comments:
Dear Dushka:
[and please do note that the term of endearment is not out of politeness, but rather, out of my own free will. I've never adressed as "dear" anyone I didn't feel deserved -- for whichever reason- the prefix, for it means this person has a significance in my own world]
This was an interesting post, and obviously it pinpoints an interesting theme: why do we all bloggers blog?
The way I see it -- Joni Mitchell dixit-, is we do it because we want to. We feel this need to write and communicate. Perhaps even to create. As a spanish friend I have put it once: Narrar(nos) la vida.
The blog I have, and mantain since August, which I invite you to visit whenever you feel like it, began its life in the shape of letters; I am a good correspondent -- and it's actually sad to see that on this enlightened age of sped-up communications, no one has time for letters, nacht!- and I used to write faithfully every week to friends in Europe.
This evolved into a blog. I had made two attempts at blogging that sputtered and died after a few days and a few weeks. Alias Cane (actually, the title of it was coined by Carol) proved to be the proverbial third.
I write, like you do, of anything that comes into my mind at the moment: film, books, music, life. Even raw material from the heart is there. I am a feeling person (which not necessarily is tantamount to being sensitive nor sensible) and sometimes what i felt at a determinate moment will find its way to my PC screen, schewing all other PC -- you know what I mean, haha.
I blog because it's cathartic. Because it's fun. Because it has led me to meet new people, and read other blogs (such as Amateur) which I have come to find as fascinating experiences.
It also helps me to keep a sort of bond -- or bridge, if you will- with friends I otherwise couldn't keep track of, and it has helped me to be found by some friends whom had lost track of me.
I do not consider (at all) the blog to be isolationist. I think it may be a wee bit risky to open oneself so blatantly in front of others, but then, again, it's part of the process. In fact, now that I come to think of it, I guess that at least for me, a blog is the exact opposite of isolation.
I've got to thank you, Dushka, for the entries you've posted so far. I've laughed, I've been touched, I've nodded and said aloud: "Me too."
I think this is a marvelous blog, and I have placed it on a sidebar of my own, among the blogs I do frequently visit and which consider trascendent and relevant and well written and amusing and, more than anything, alive, as your writings demonstrate.
I hope I haven't become dull, nor tiresome. Just let me say -- at risk of sounding redundant- that I admire your prowess and style.
I hope to read more, even.
Fond regards,
MC
And with your comment, Miguel, I rest my case. Blogging is not isolating in the least!
Thank you for reading. I'll find Alias Cane and do the same.
Miguel, Ben -
Puedo poner los links de sus respectivos blogs en mi blog?
Lo hare apenas tenga su permiso.
Saludos,
DZ
Dear Dushka,
On my part, most certainly!
In fact, I correspond (even if a tad late) with the same request.
Fond regards,
Very interesting, Dushka! You have to love writing in order to blog - I'll wait for the speech recognition software to be out first :)
By the way, what will your book be about?
Sencho - I think I won't know that until it's done.
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