Behind the Blogger, Part One: The Blog Thing

In earlier posts, I've touched on some of my reasons for starting this blog, but on a long walk today, I was bursting with ideas for future posts. I've had friends and family (and my own brain) asking me a lot of questions about the blog. Here are a few:

"Why would you want to expose so much of yourself in such a public way? Aren't you worried about what people might find out?"

This one sounded a bit paranoid to me. Places like this, PeopleLookup.com, can find out just about anything about you. You want more info? Spend a little more time, and a little more money, you can find out about peoples' marital status, past jobs, homes. . .all kinds of stuff. Shoot, we never know when the Bush Administration is listening into our phone calls, tapping our computers, opening our mail. All I've done with the blog is save people thirty minutes, and $39.95.

"Why is your opinion important enough that other people would want to read it?"
Why is anybody's? There are a gazillion blogs out there, very few written by people professionally trained in having an opinion worth expressing! For that matter, who the heck are Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh, Dr. Phil, or Dr. Laura? What makes them so special? My favorite comedienne, Kathleen Madigan, had a great joke about Dr. Laura. What, did she wake up one day and say, "I'm just so gosh-darn right about everything, I'm gonna start taking calls!"

"Why do you want to write, if you don't think anybody is ever going to read it?"

Because it's great practice. I think I can improve my writing skills, my vocabulary, and spelling. Writing my thoughts down also has already made me analyze some of my opinions. Seeing it written down makes you examine whether or not it makes sense. I'm not into confrontation or arguing particularly, but I do like spirited debate, and this will absolutely help. I heartily recommend this to anybody. If you don't want it made public, just open up your word processor or dust off your typewriter, and start writing! Who knows, it just might lead to something.

Over the next few hours/days/weeks, I intend to write a series of "Behind the Blogger" posts. I've already started composing a few in my brain, including "The Politics Thing," "The Religion Thing," and "The Gay Thing." These posts in particular will address deeper reasons for my blogging, while hopefully also integrating current events as they relate to the topic. This may be introspective at best, or navel-gazing at worst, but hey, it's my blog!