Statistics will tell us that the majority of blogs are personal in nature. Millions of people around the world take to the typepad every day, twittering away about the dullest details of their daily lives.
Opening my Facebook page each morning, I am greeted with a news feed of non-noteworthy activity of faint friends and business acquaintances: Marcy is feeling her oats; Janet is having another latte; Jake is blogging about Brooklyn; Rip is tearing it up.
Why do I care? I don’t know, but I do. I regularly check the profiles of ex-lovers and former colleagues, not with any intention of making contact; I have no desire to reconnect or even to reminisce. I am just a curious yellow voyeur. I enjoy the fact that I can browse the photos from last week’s picnic, or vicariously enjoy the wedding festivities of the most casual acquaintance: though I wasn’t close enough to merit an invite to the reception, I did get to see the bride, and while I don’t know the family, it was fun to see them all dressed up in their Sunday best.
The blogging habit has been a natural one for me to acquire. I have since childhood been an obsessive keeper of journals. I keep a file cabinet bursting with moleskins, binders full of scribblings, pages of poems, thoughts, and daily drivel.
I journal compulsively for an audience of one – myself. I do not share my notebooks, and , despite a background in journalism, do not harbor any serious pretensions of publication. I simply put pen to paper in hopes of divining some patterns; I long to put some order to the cacophony of thoughts and the randomness of life’s curious curveballs.
Occasionally, I get a comment on my blog posts. It is always surprising -- and edifying -- to make connections with strangers based solely upon the synergy of search terms – the coincidence of keywords. We are all looking for connections.
Like the proverbial message in a bottle, I post and pitch my little contributions into the choppy waters, and wait. A day, a week, a lifetime, for the echo of the cosmic giggle to ping me back.
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