Writing a Blog: Over-Indulgence, Added Bonus, or Something Else?
“If you do not tell the truth about yourself
you cannot tell it about other people.”
―Virginia Woolf
Why write a blog?
The narcissism intrinsic to diaries and auto-interviews; the delusional aspect of talking to yourself; the arrogance of conception, realization, publication, thinking you have something valuable to share; the deep-rooted vanity of a so-called struggling author to expose herself, her anxieties, ambitions, doubts, wants—the presumptuousness of writing anything at all.
1944
The opening sentences of Saul Bellow’s Dangling Man read as follows: “There was a time when people were in the habit of addressing themselves frequently and felt no shame at making a record of their inward transactions. But to keep a journal nowadays is considered a kind of self-indulgence, a weakness, and in poor taste. For this is an era of hardboileddom.”
2019
What’s the contemporary opinion on private journals? Have they become less popular now we express ourselves on blogs and social media? Are blogs still perceived as valuable additions, added bonuses to traditional media or do they belong in Bellow’s category of self-indulgence and poor taste? Why do we write blogs? Are they straightforward marketing tools? A way to give meaning to otherwise meaningless events? A technique to connect?
Just a few things to consider here in the weeks, months, years to come.
Photo: Stone stepping path in a water garden along Lake Zurich.
