Wednesday, August 10

Why I blog

During my visit with her last month, my niece told me all about the Little Miss Perfect that lives inside her head. She tries not to listen to Little Miss Perfect because all she does is take all the fun away. She also correctly deduced that I have a Little Miss Perfect that lives inside my head.

I blog for me, because I like it. When I’m not trying to put the pressure on, I have a lot of fun with it. I love seeing my words and images up on the web. If absolutely nobody ever read my blog. I think I would still blog. I need a little creative outlet and I enjoy this way of expressing myself.

I also blog for my mental health. I always feel a little bit like an exhibitionist for blogging. However, I find that by exposing my thoughts, feelings and life, it makes me feel a little more sure of myself. Getting feedback from others is always reassuring. Often by blogging about something, it forces me to clarify exactly what I think or how I feel about something. It also forces me to listen to how I sound and to evaluate the soundness of my thoughts and to take positive action a little more quickly then I might have otherwise. Blogging helps keeps my perspective in check.

I blog for social reasons. I love the way blogging has allowed me to communicate with distant friends and family and to reconnect with people that I had lost touch with. One of the unexpected benefits is that I'm getting to know people I never met before in both my own neighborhood and all over the world. This honest dialogue has only served to broaden my perspective. I am inspired, informed, moved and intrigued by others. I still get a kick out of the fact that people are actually interested in hearing what I have to say.

I blog because I want to improve my writing. In order to write well you need to write often. After the trauma of bombing the Analytical essays on the GRE’s I definitely want to improve my writing. Now if I could only do something about my handwriting…

I also blog to have a journal of where I am now and to store information that I may want to reference at some point in the future.

I truly have a personal blog. I don’t have a topic or a theme. I love reading thematic blogs, but I really don’t want one myself. Sometimes I wish I did, but a thematic blog just doesn’t fit in with my other goals. Sometimes I need to remind myself that that's okay.

I also do not blog for an audience. I think that many new bloggers have this vision of their blog becoming as cool and popular as dooce. I admit that at times I have entertained such thoughts myself. Honestly, I’m just not that cool, that brave, or that controversial. I blog in a conversational tone to my friends. I generally avoid subjects that are overly controversial or offensive, because well that just isn’t me.

My Little Miss Perfect thinks that I should write one well thought out post at a fairly consistent time each day. Each post should be funny, witty, and informative, complete with links and illustrations that I had created myself. There should be a picture or photo with each and every post. I should email a personal response to each comment I received. I should read each and every post of those that comment on my blog and I should read and comment on many other blogs besides. This should all be done with love in my heart and should be orchestrated seamlessly. No pressure. I simply don’t have the time to meet Little Miss Perfect’s standards. Trying to do so just makes me grumpy.

If I could do half of what Little Miss Perfect thinks I should do I’d be thrilled, but lately even that has been difficult. I even briefly considered taking some time off or quitting blogging altogether, but what would that solve? It would only feed into my all or nothing tendencies and Little Miss Perfect would succeed in taking all my fun away.

So I’m going to kick back for a while and put the fun back into things. I’m making no promises, because the second I do Little Miss Perfect while start chanting these promises in my ear. I can guarantee that will not be blogging everyday. Not for a lack of things to say, but for a lack of time to say it. I can also guarantee that things will not be as well decorated as they once were. Perhaps by spending less time searching for illustrations to my posts, I’ll actually start taking more photographs again.

13 comments:

Lora said...

It is amazingly theraputic. Oh and I'm quite guilty of looking at my site stats regularly. I find it amazing that they haven't taken a nosedive recently.

Bearette said...

Your site is just perfect as it is :)

Waterfall said...

So there, Little Miss Perfect! Great post ... I think a lot of us feel the same way about our blogs, and you've articulated it well.

So just keep doin' what you're doin'!

Anvilcloud said...

I probably wouldn't write if I didn't blog. I'm just not very good at keeping private journals. The blog serves as an inducement to write. It did before anyone much read my blog. Sometimes I think I should start all over, anonymously, under a new banner. Nobody would check and I would blog simply for myself. But I like the contact too and would miss it, I'm afraid.

Kel said...

The lovely Lora getting lucid on blogging. Blog about what feeds your soul - chances are others with similar interests will stick around to say g'day.

Sue said...

Lots of interesting thoughts there. I think I blog for much the same reasons, although my initial purpose was to communicate what we actually do for friends/family in the UK, mixed with what it's like to live in Cyprus as an ex-pat, since that's what I'm most often asked. Hence I'm more 'thematic' than you, and set up new blogs for other themes. I don't have any ambition to be well-known in blog circles; on the other hand, if nobody at all read mine I don't think I'd continue; I'd just write (by hand!) in a private journal, as I always have done, off and on.

BTW I'm intrigued by the Little Miss Perfect. I don't have one of those at all. It's a concept that's associated strongly with Enneagram type 1 (a frequent match with INFJ) - and my lack of such an internal critic is what persuaded me I couldn't be a type 1.

tapestrygirl said...

Little Miss Perfect. I don't think the comment area is large enough to share my thoughts on it. I will have to spew it on my blog. Later. After she's sedated. So she won't get in the way again......

Anonymous said...

Well said, Lora. My Little Miss Perfect says a lot of the same things yours does, but I listen to her way too often. I'm still working on that.

Catez said...

Lora,
I enjoy your blog and have since I first read it. I think you got in a simple down-to-earth nutshell: "I blog because I like it."

I know about that little miss perfect.... She has hundreds of blogs....

Lol.

Megan Stuke said...

Great post, Lora. I resemble many of those sentiments. Blogging, as goofy as it may seem, has done a lot for me; boosted my confidence, made me change jobs, connected me with amazing new people. I have never been good at keeping a personl journal. The feeling that there is, or might be, an audience somewhere keeps us going. A little of the narcissist in all of us I guess.

Lora said...

It's nice to know that others feel like blogging has helped them as musch as I think it has helped me.

My Little Miss Perfect has gotten me in far more trouble then I would like to admit. I may be a 1 not a 9 Ennegram, but honestly I see a little of all the types in me which is a 9 characteristic. I know I'm not an 8 a 7 or a 3, although I can be action oriented when I put my mind to it.

TL said...

Love your post and your blog!! I am new to blogging and I felt such pressure to produce quality writing. My thoughts are so random and really have no set theme. My Little Miss Perfect has me editing my posts, trying to make them "better." But what is better than pure though and feelings?

Anonymous said...

Lora,
...your wise ( ) father-in-law commends you to Julia Cameron's...
The Right to Write...or Artist's Way...for how to deal with Little Miss Perfect....
cheers,
N