What is a blog, you ask? According to the Merriam Webster Online Dictionary, (why use a regular handheld dictionary when you can clackety clack a few keys and get the answer to your question in seconds?) a blog is “a website on which someone writes about personal opinions, activities, and experiences.” According to Dictionary.com, a blog is “an online diary; a personal chronological log of thoughts published on a Web page; also called Weblog , Typically updated daily, blogs often reflect the personality of the author.” However, the very best definition comes from the UrbanDictionary.com which defines a blog as “short for weblog. A meandering, blatantly uninteresting online diary that gives the author the illusion that people are interested in their stupid, pathetic life. Consists of such riveting entries as “homework sucks” and “I slept until noon today.”
I designed my blog to be a short reflection of events that I have experienced or ideas that I have thought about. Many of you who know me understand that I tend to be cerebral. I love to learn. I pretend to be a scholar, even though I am not. I read a lot of different kinds of articles, blogs, books, and printed material just because I like to do it. I think about what I read and formulate opinions, which I run by my children who give me scandalized looks or make comments like, “You think too much.”
Why do people blog? Maybe the Urban Dictionary is correct when it says that the writer who blogs has a pathetic life and wants to feel important. Maybe no one really cares what the blogger thinks, but in truth, I think blogging is an outlet for ideas. By blogging, I have the opportunity to identify with people who have the same experiences that I have. For example, maybe a young mother is not interested in hearing about the widowed life, but other widows identify with me because they share the experience. However, when I write about my experience at the Chick-fil-a on Friday when it was swarming with little kids five years and younger, suddenly the young mothers show interest. (I’ll tell you about that experience.)
Blogging creates a community of people who are acquainted with me personally or are acquainted with my experience, and through writing and reading we connect. Some of you come back to read what other things I have thought about during the week, and some of you only come once in a while when a topic interests you, but either way, I am glad you come back. Feel free to give feedback and interact.