After taking a nice break from blogging over the holidays, I am a bit reluctant to get back to the “daily grind” once again. It’s basically like a second job, but one that I don’t get paid for. It’s at times like this that I am forced to question why I do it and whether or not it’s worth the effort.
My usual response whenever people ask me is simply that I enjoy writing as a creative outlet, and blogging is a great excuse to give those literary muscles a regular workout. I’d also be lying if I said I didn’t hope that one day down the road I could spin it into a second career of some sort too. I don’t know how realistic that is, though; freelance writing is not an easy way to make ends meet, and with all the other bloggers out there giving away their writing for free, it seems awfully difficult to sell words for a living.
The weird thing is, upon further reflection, I believe that there is also a metaphysical component to my blogging compulsion. I have heard people mention a philosophy of “I post therefore I am”, with regards to the internet. A presence in the online world is equivalent to a second life, and a digital record of your existence that could very well last well beyond your own mortal lifespan. (Then again, with the very fabric of the internet being constantly in flux, maybe that’s not such a great assumption to make.) But I’ve always been the kind of person who felt a need to leave something behind when I die, and if these random internet scribblings end up being the only evidence of my life on this earth, then so be it. I guess in a way, all I really want to do is to live forever. Is that so much to ask?
Now I’m curious… Say it’s 200 years from now. Everything has stayed the same. Will somebody who by accident types http://www.seandwyer.net in their browser access this site, and possibly read all of this content? Do websites really ‘live forever’?
I like your blogs (except for the music one, I just don’t get your taste in music). Even if you would like to live forever, what about the benefits of making something in the now. 98% of all blog content is pretty ‘timely’ and dates itself pretty fast, but it provides entertainment, and encourages feedback ASAP. That’s something, even if you do not achieve multiple life achievement awards.
You’re right, blogs are all about immediacy and there’s not much value in reading them years later. Still, I have this weird urgency in writing sometimes, where it’s like, if I don’t get an idea out and post a certain thought now, it’ll be lost forever.
I’d like to make a goal of writing more stuff on this blog in particular that is not “news” but rather personal stories and short essays. I have to give it some more thought though.
I didn’t mean it in a derogatory way. I think there are positive things to be found either way you look at it.
Looking forward to more reading in 2007.
On the other hand, if the blogs of today are still accessible hundreds of years from now, they could serve as a usefull tool in understanding early 21st Century people. Sure, there may be other forms of recorded history but blogs could provide an almost infinite spectrum of individual accounts of everyday life.
Keep up the blogging. I need it. PS Do you know of a REALLY good website for rock shows? I have had difficulty finding a really good one stop shop so to speak (aside from reading the Now and Eye magazines).
If you’re talking about concert listings, the only sites I really look at are Eye and Pollstar. I just updated the concert listings on Film Junk the other day… I know I kind of stopped updating them for a while but I’m going to try and keep up again.