Starting Again

Blogging is a gift. It has the power to touch someone else's life you don't even know, but there's more to it than that. It has the power to touch your own. It helps you process your life, and the events and things around you in a way that few other things can. You talk into the void, organizing your thoughts as your fingers scramble on the keyboard, and by some miracle you end up with something meaningful and full purpose; if not for others, almost always for yourself.

At some point, I gave this all up. I don't know if it was because it was "time to grow up" or because I had finally ran out of things to say (that can't be it). In some ways, this blog post is exactly that: my attempt to figure out why I stopped, and if it was good or bad, or somewhere in between.

I grew up blogging. It was my introduction to the internet. I connected with every single person I ever met professionally through the internet, and it wasn't social media. That came later, but before the garbage dump of that inferno, there was blogging. It was full, encapsulated thoughts at best, and amusing directionless ramblings at worst. But it was all human — it wasn't algorithms or ads or short clips. It was full thoughts and arguments and individuals telling the entire world what they thought of it.

And then popularity, subscriptions, ratings, and Google search came and turned it into a money machine. All of a sudden people were making 7 figures blogging about whatever came into their mind, and at that moment, I'm fairly certain, blogging died. It was no longer the therapy that we so desperately needed.

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Blogging is also fundamentally different than journaling. I love journaling but I haven't done that almost as long as I haven't blogged. The truth is, blogging is for you but only inasmuch as it is also for those who are interested in reading it. You blog to process your life, but you blog so that people can see you. Is that vain? No, it's just human. The older version of this is talking for hours and hours with someone face-to-face — but we don't do that anymore either, we just scroll until our eyes burn.

I'm not sure why I gave this all up, but I feel like I need to start again. Not for clicks, not for likes, not for a following — but because I'm a writer without a pen. Most of this stuff I bottle up, and I don't get out except for the long, deep conversations I have with my wife (I love you, honey).

But writing, even if it's rambling like I'm doing now, is more permanent. It stays long after you've said it, and reminds you of who you used to be and who you've become. I likely won't agree with everything I write, and I'll probably contradict myself over time — but that's what it means to be a human.

I think I'd like to remember that.