Blog Me?

The other day, my friend Liv was a bit exasperated when she learned that she couldn't access blogs (including hers) in blogger from her office. She was delighted however to have learned about Wordpress, and so she imported all her blog entries to her blog's new home.

She insisted that I use Wordpress as my blogs' "mirror site" so that she could still read my ramblings and thoughts. Somewhere along our conversation, we have thought of one question...

Why Blog?

Why are we so into the whole blogging thing? When we tried to rationalize our blogging craze, we initially had one word in common to describe this art of self-expression:

Therapy.

To blog or journal-writing, at least for me, is a therapeutic tool I have been using since the first time I have discovered my inner desire to express myself through words. I recall that I had numerous notebooks filled with my pre-teen ramblings, frustrations, dreams, desires, secrets, prayers, hexes (just kidding), etc...

Though I have forgotten to write for a couple of years, my desire to express my thoughts came back to life when I learned of online journals. I immediately subsribed to these blogsites. At first, I felt a bit uneasy using it, especially if the topics I wanted to write about are a bit sensitive. After all, aren't journals supposed to be secret memoirs, tucked under our pillows or stashed in some sort of secret compartment, complete with lock and key? Using online journals, instead of keeping your most private thoughts and (and in my case, biatchiest rants), exposes not only your milestones and momentous events and happy thoughts. It also exposes your most vulnerable side, your irrational and dirtiest (or skankiest) thoughts, and the evil side in you (that is, if you are completely open to writing everything).

However, I still chose to use blogs, because first, I couldn't shake off my old habit of journal-writing, and second, online journals are more accessible (hey, I am in front of the computer almost the whole day!).

At first I was a bit conscious on what I wrote about, then later on all out self-expression. As people started reading my blog, and a few even commented on what I have written, I realized that I enjoyed blogging because I felt I was connecting with the readers, with my friends, with my chatmates. I felt that this was a way of keeping each other updated on how we are, a way of disclosing (with or without knowing it) our own personalities entry by entry. And everytime people commented, I felt that I wasn't alone with my feelings or emotions I felt while writing about a certain topic, whereas in private journals, though I have blurted everything in writing, I was still alone, and it's only me who comforts myself.