Friday, January 8, 2010

Why don't you blog about it?


My roommates and I are loud overdramatic people so when I disagreed with something my roommate said instead of responding politely I yelled, "you're weird!" and ran into my room.

He yelled back, "Why don't you blag about it?"

This is his usual response when I comment on or complain about something. If I take his advice I'll be blogging about the dishes next.

I sometimes mention that I have a blog. I do not particularly want my friends reading my blog because there are only so many things I can be excited about on one day. It just gives us less to talk about. But that isn't the issue. The issue is that people often react negatively when I mention blogging. Somehow each time it happens I forget, because the reaction just doesn't make sense. If I told them I had been writing poetry or working on some personal work they would be fine, but somehow blogs are different.

There are issues in blogging. Sometimes people are always looking around for a new topic, or spend all free time reading other peoples blogs and updating. But those aren't issues everyone has. There are many worse things to be doing with spare time. Really that doesn't sounds like being a writer.My friends don't think I'm spending all my time working on my blog, so that can't be the issue.

No, it's the perception blogging a sign of mental ill health. In spite of all the great blogs out there most people still think that blogs are a place for high school kids to rant and moan about how hard they have it and how no one understands them, and assert their pretentious understanding of the world. This is a sign of ill health because it displays a level of obsession with personal experience that prevents any focus on the external world. I have always believed it is better to focus outward. There is only so much you can understand, and like a windows os there is much more that can go wrong then right.

2 comments:

Conda Douglas said...

Yeah, I get the same reaction from some people about blogs, especially when I mention I've found out some good stuff from the blogs I visit. What gets me is that some of these people spend all evening, every evening watching TV. Now I watch a little TV, but I find blogs entertaining too, so what's the diff?

Elisabeth said...

I agree with Conda. Blogs are easily as entertaining as TV watching but they also require more thinking and work.

I suspect that people have a go at bloggers and blogging because until you start blogging yourself it's hard to imagine what it's all about and people are often intimidated by the unknown and unfamiliar.

A terrific post here.

Powered By Blogger