Blogging - Is it Worth Keeping up With It?

I started this little old blog of mine on because I wanted to become apart of the blogosphere.  I seen other people blogging away putting what they had to say or share in a post.  So on February 23, 2005 this blog was born.

At first I had short posts.  They were one maybe two paragraphs long.  Some. Of those posts were nothing special.  It was place to post whatever.  It still a place to do that mind you.  But looking back, I can't stand to read them as I find they suck.  I kept up with it. I kept blogging away.  I kept at it and oas time went on, my writing and posts got better.

When I saw one of my cousins this past summer at our other cousin's wedding, he said that he has checked out this little ol' blog of mine.  I thought that was cool.  He complimented me by that he can tell that I am a pretty good writer by what he reads of my statuses and whatnot on Faceook.  This affirmation from my cousin is appreciated as I find that the dedication and improvements I've made to this blog in a number of ways has been worth it.

Now, a lot friends, family, and people I know either do blog or have blogged. Some blog for awhile and some for a short period of time.  In the case of my good friend Mark, he would blog for a time, than he would stop.  Than he would get the itch to blog again.  This has been a trend for him over the years.  It's a love/hate relationship with him when it comes to blogging about certain topics.  I get it, but you have to be willing to put yourself out there when blogging in some way.  Even thought blogging can be a very good thing, Mark said that "it can easily become narcissistic and enable unhealthy ways of thinking and living."  That is true as well.  I wanted to know if he feels vulnerable when blogging. He said, "Well, writing is a vulnerable thing.  Assuming you aren't being deceptive, you are showing yourself to another person."

Vulnerability can be one of things that prevent people from doing something like blogging or blogging on certain topics.  I hope that some people can find a way to overcome this vulnerability and blog without worrying about whether or not it's too personal or it's too this or too that.  I certainly hope that for Mark.

I can empathize with not blogging all the time.  This year has the least amount of posts I ever had.  I am sort of kicking myself for not doing more blogging because there were lots of things I could have blogged about, but was lazy in doing so.

I wonder if the other people who I know that blogged stopped because of either laziness or having nothing to say?  Sometimes it can be combination of the two.

This brings me to the question that is in the title of this post.  It is worth keeping up with it?  Speaking for myself, I think it is worth it because whenever I check out people's blogs, I like to read about what they have to say about things.  It's unfortunate that someone such as Phil Loseth doesn't blog anymore.  He was one who I liked to read whenever I went to his blog.  Maybe a comeback is in order, eh Phil?

Now, Marc Vandersulys celebrated ten years of blogging on December 12.  I appreciated the honesty in that post.  He noted that he wants to take his blog into some direction, but isn't sure which direction.  I can understand.  Carving out what your blog should look like and what content it should have can be hard.  He also noted that he wants blogging to be fun again.  That I can also understand.  His noted declining number of posts over the second half of the ten years could be an indication that he needs to have it fun again and not just post to post.

You should never see a blog as something you have to do.  More as something you want to do.  Don't make a blog something you do begrudgingly.  If you go into it with the mindset that you do it for fun and the enjoyment of it, than keep it that way.  Don't loathe doing it and never do it again.  I get that you fall out of doing it for various reasons, just don't use the reason you hate doing it.  If you hated doing it, than you wouldn't have started blogging in the first place.  With that mindset, you show that it's not worth keeping up.  If you have a positive mind frame about the whole blogging process and things surrounding blogging, you show that it's worth keeping up.

I am not trying persuade anybody into continuing to blog.  But it that happens, than that's awesome.  If not, that's cool too.  I am just saying from my personal point of view that it is worth it keeping it up because you never who reads your blog, shares your posts, comments, etc..  Make it worth it.  Make it something you are proud of.  Start somewhere and go from there.  That's what I did and I've improved greatly in my nearly nine years of blogging.

I feel like a nearly nine years, or however long, of improving my blogging and writing in general would be wasted if I didn't keep up with it.  There are more good benefits than bad to keeping up with blogging.  You should see it as a joy and something fun rather than a chore.  Here is to hoping you keep up your blog and make it the best it can be.

In The Age Of The Internet

Here is a poem I randomly started to write as a status on Facebook, but decided to post in a blog instead.

In the age of the Internet, news travels fast and five seconds later it is old
In the age of the Internet, people will believe anything
In the age of the Internet, people will have their nutty convoluted views and opinions affirmed
In the age of the Internet, there are ways to get things without paying for it
In the age of the Internet, jokes and sarcasm are not easily picked up by people as they are too dense
In the age of the Internet, the stupidest shit becomes popular
In the age of the Internet, people will start rumors on social networking sites because they seemingly have nothing to do
In the age of the Internet, people act differently than they do offline
In the age of the Internet, people think it's a big deal to hide their identity when you can easily be found
In the age of the Internet, people act like they know everything and don't like to be proven wrong
In the age of the Internet, people post statuses on Facebook saying they are bored yet they are on the Internet
In the age of the Internet, people say they support charities and causes, but in actuality, they don't do anything to prove that
In the age of the Internet, we have crafted a language specifically for use online because we've become too lazy to type complete words
In the age of the Internet, people like to label people without knowing them even if it is true
In the age of the Internet, things have changed for the good and for the bad