Why a Blog?

A number of different occurrences and trends in my life have led me to start a blog. In a general sense, I've been feeling the need to get my thoughts down in some way shape or form for a long time. "Make sure you document what you're doing or thinking regularly, if you hope to learn anything," a person who's opinion I trust (I think) told me a few months ago. And I have been abysmal. So the blog exists as something that will be more--if not much more--than a long word document that sits, gathering moss, in the dark recesses of my computer.

Secondly, I have begun to appreciate the blogosphere more than I once did. In college, the news was a break from reading what I needed to, I read it to refresh myself. Now, three months deep in adulthood, I've noticed that the news becomes what I do when I use the computer. The absence of some other intellectual project has made me focus my brain power on finding out stuff. I've come to appreciate the possibilities a blog holds, in terms of getting opinions out, in terms of bringing other opinions in, and in terms of moving between and to interesting information. Given that my energies are no longer used to understand Heidigger (not that I gave him much effort, Being and Time was probably one of the things I read in college that I understood the least) I have found myself wanting opinions and thoughts on whats going on in the world. So, having been softened up a bit by a recent intensification in my web-surfing, I've started this blog.

Thirdly, I want to stay in the habit of expressing myself in writing. I feel my emails geting clunkier, my sentences worse, and my ability to express what I'm thinking in words deteriorating. So I've started the blog, if only because the prospect of writing in a place where other people can read--even if this is the scribbling on a dive bar bathroom wall equivalent to writing for other people--will make me more careful about what I write.

Lastly, and this was what actually put the actual concrete idea into my head as a way to deal with these nagging thoughts, I recently saw a friend start a blog. So, on top of being a twentysomething with general directionlessness, I'm a copycat. Then again, who's not?

Self-deprecation aside, this is a blog I'll post my thoughts about a variety of subjects on. You might even find a link to something I found interesting. Please respond to what is written.