Ever since I saw the word emergence on Colin's blog, I've been thinking about how much of blogging is really about the emergence of a personality. I'm not really sure what that phrase I just wrote means, but that's sort of the point. Often when I blog, I don't know where I'm going and I just let my mind carry me. My unconscious mind does most of the driving.
So while our topic this week isn't nailed down, I think that's exactly the point of the blogosphere. There is no set format, no common amount of rules that any blogger must follow. There are attempts to setup rules of blogging, but they often end up being failures or kind of creepy. A blogger should log when they feel like writing, click on that happy little green post button and just run with whatever their mind is thinking. This method of blogging will essentially create a valid representation of the blogger. Planned and well thought out blogs are just another form of journalism. Who wants more of that?
Truthfully, I'm more fascinated with what comes to people's mind spontaneously and in the moment. Lots of times I'll read an article on Slate or Salon and have the immediate compulsion to respond to it. I wont sit around James Wolcott style and plan out a deep and interesting response. I'll just write what I'm feeling at the time and hope it's good.
I suppose what I'm suggesting is that blogs could very easily be an effective representation of personality. Reading through my blog, I know immediately what was on my mind at the time I wrote something. I have actually become closer to myself through blogging. Even without being intentionally metacognitive, my blog has made me think about myself more then ever.
Of course the credit for this idea really comes from Elin and this article which made me think that we define ourselves by our blogs, even if it's unintentional. Elin writes "So while I admire my colleagues like Brett and Bill who are so free with the details of their lives on their blogs, it ain't me." Exactly.
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3 comments:
Interesting revelation from Erin. Not surprising. She spent her life as a lawyer where due consideration is rewarded and impulse usually not. I wonder whether her professional change will make her more impulsive. More important , will it change her blog? Me, I can't even SPELL du consydiration.
Or ELIN for that matter.
It is, I agree, a great quality of the 'sphere that it so resembles (or, maybe, lays an easy track for) how our trains of thought work.
Unconscious, or, at least, uninhibited by rampantly conscious writing moments are a big part of it.
Bigger still is the whole different-feeling mindset the blog forest puts you (I guess I mean me) into... compared to, say, the face to face smalltalk setting of a class break or the old mill of reading and processing (and, frequently, getting indigestion over) the newspapers.
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