It's very weird. Even though I wanted to write about something else, I feel compelled to blog about blogging (although I'm not the first one to do so, I'm sure, it is what I'm thinking about at the moment).
In real life, I am a very closed and quiet person. I am friendly and outgoing, but do not have many very close friends and tend to keep my inner life fenced off. My greatest joy is to spend long hours by myself, taking photos, writing, surfing the internet, or doing graphic design.
When I started this blog, it was out of an impetuous desire to get the many competing and vigorous thoughts in my head, out, in a form that others could read without knowing who I was. I find the discipline of writing in a public setting invigorating: you have to choose words carefully, be less emotionally entangled in what you write. You must be concise and compelling, engaging others in your thoughts without becoming too personal. You are writing in one sense for others and in another sense for yourself.
I find myself increasingly self-conscious as in recent days others have discovered my blog. Now I know someone is reading it besides myself! As rewarding as that is, it is also somewhat panic-inducing. I find myself faced with the temptation to retreat back into the cave, drawing the curtains closed to keep the outer world, out. I won't do that, because I know it is not healthy. Plus I started this for this reason.
However, one thing I didn't realize when I started blogging is that blogging is not only about writing (though it is that), but about community. Face it, the reason we write our innermost thoughts down for all the world to see is that we want others to view them and acknowledge. And, as with self-revelation in private life, this is designed to create relationship. Knowing and being known. Going deeper into another's soul and secret, inner world. Even if the person who you are reading and to whom you are commenting is totally anonymous, it still initiates relationship: if only briefly.
I feel as if when I was blogging for myself alone, I was skating along the ice of blogging. Now that a few people have discovered and started reading, I feel as if (to mix metaphors in an odd way, but it's the image in my head) I've been sucked under the surface into a little pod of community. The blogs I read and their friends have opened up a whole other world. And as scary as that is for me, and as much as I'd like to withdraw, I won't. Because, after all, we were created for community. We need to know and to be known. And it is good.
Peace to you all.