To blog is therefore to let go of your writing in a way, to hold it at arm’s length, open it to scrutiny, allow it to float in the ether for a while, and to let others, as Montaigne did, pivot you toward relative truth. A blogger will notice this almost immediately upon starting. Some e-mailers, unsurprisingly, know more about a subject than the blogger does. They will send links, stories, and facts, challenging the blogger’s view of the world, sometimes outright refuting it, but more frequently adding context and nuance and complexity to an idea. The role of a blogger is not to defend against this but to embrace it. He is similar in this way to the host of a dinner party. He can provoke discussion or take a position, even passionately, but he also must create an atmosphere in which others want to participate.
That atmosphere will inevitably be formed by the blogger’s personality. The blogosphere may, in fact, be the least veiled of any forum in which a writer dares to express himself. Even the most careful and self-aware blogger will reveal more about himself than he wants to in a few unguarded sentences and publish them before he has the sense to hit Delete. The wise panic that can paralyze a writer—the fear that he will be exposed, undone, humiliated—is not available to a blogger. You can’t have blogger’s block. You have to express yourself now, while your emotions roil, while your temper flares, while your humor lasts. You can try to hide yourself from real scrutiny, and the exposure it demands, but it’s hard. And that’s what makes blogging as a form stand out: it is rich in personality.
–”Why I Blog,” Andrew Sullivan (via Chelsea G. Summers)
~ videamus quid sit exilium. nempe loci commutatio.~
Meta
Find Me Here
I love that he compares it to a dinner party. I love dinner parties. The warmth, the wit, the humor, and even the–uncomfortable silence when the awkward word or two is spoken. I feel like the blogger gets to set the table stage for all who visit. I love how you sometimes set the table with red hot lace, and chocolate, and other times with crisp white linens, and sometimes its just the table, simple and laid bare. You definitely have a nack for setting an inviting table.
Thanks, Lizzy. I appreciate that.
So ummmm…. how does my blog fit into this analogy? I mean… Have you read it lately?
http://somethingsavage.blogspot.com
Thanks for sharing. It’s what the Internet is all about. You find the best stuff. I may yet start blogging.
Will click your link momentarily Savage. I blog, but my blog is no where near being like a dinner party. Mine’s sorta like tossing out the bath water. I’ve always used journaling as a way to release stuff, to me blogging is an extension of that. I don’t even follow if people have read it. I sorta set it afloat on a burning boat into the churning sea. Whatever comes of it will be. Its cathartic.
A quote from a blog I read regularly via another blog I read. Ahh the blogosphere is refreshingly tiny at times.
We’re all in bed with one another.
Metaphorically speaking, of course.