Why would someone go to the effort and expense of blogging? In case you’ve ever wanted to know, here’s why I blog.
I recently saw a blog post or perhaps even a Facebook post that talked about the importance of occasionally reviewing why you started your blog and what you hope to accomplish.
So here goes.
Why I Started Blogging
This blog’s first post came in February of 2004. But its predecessor, a static webpage hosted on some freebie web service I don’t even remember, began a few months before that. What I hoped to do with this blog was to entertain people with some bit of humor the way Andy Rooney entertained audiences at the end of every episode of 60 Minutes.
No, while I might have fantasized that I might be as good as Rooney one day, I had no delusion that I was that good.
I posted a few pieces, one at time, each new one replacing the one before it, on that static website. This went on for a few months before it dawned on me that I shouldn’t throw out the previous piece when I posted something new.
I had heard of blogging, but I hadn’t really looked into it. Then I found out about AOL’s Journals platform, an early, extremely barebones version of blogging and I thought I’d give it a try. It was on that platform that this blog made its debut in February, 2004.
Why I Still Blog
I honestly didn’t expect I’d have an audience. Anyone who happened to find me, I was convinced, would do so entirely by accident.
But AOL Journals was sort of unique. It was a little community in the truest sense of the word. People would visit each other’s blog (journal) and comment. Nowadays, a good post might get five or six comments. Back then, it was possible that a good post might get 40 or 50.
That early reaction made me realize that there might be people out there who were interested in what I have to say, although I never really did know why. Yes, I was definitely “spoiled”  by the interaction and feedback I received in that small sliver of the blogosphere, and yes, I knew when I made the decision to move from AOL to Blogger that I’d be giving up some of that loyal audience. (A portion of the audience was more loyal to AOL’s little sliver of the web than the bloggers who used that platform, unfortunately.)
But because I knew and expected the interaction to end, I didn’t immediately feel like a failure when it did. Since then, of course, many bloggers have experienced a consistent drop in comments and interaction.
I know that trend, much as I may hate it, exists. Knowing that helps me keep going when I see a post I’m proud of get no comments at all. That’s life, after all.
Still, I have stats that tell me people are still reading even if they don’t comment. We have more demands on our time than ever before. Commenting nowadays can be a real effort, especially if your only choice to comment is to try typing something out on a cell phone. I understand.
When I’ll Stop Blogging
I have this domain through about 2020 or so, which means I’ll at least go another five years, since it’d really bug me to pay for a domain I no longer use.
I think I’ll blog as long as I have something to say, and there’s almost always something to talk about.
My best friend told me something a few years back that touched me very deeply. He proposed that one day down the road, when we’re all old and gray, I should move in with him and his wife. By then, their kids will have moved out, made their way through college and started families of their own.
I’ve tried to imagine what that would be like, living there with two people who I love as true family. I imagine I’ll still be blogging, and maybe by then, some 20 years or more down the road, I will have convinced him to start a blog of his own.
At the very least, maybe he’ll guest post here once in a while.
As long as he doesn’t post pictures of me sitting on a park bench feeding pigeons, I imagine we’ll all be fine.
I just hope you’ll still be reading by then. Who knows what we’ll be talking about in the 2030s?
