Blogs. The curated, written looking glass into someone’s perspective. That’s what I love about them. Blogs. Waking up in the morning and spending a little time reading over the carefully chosen words of another human being. Truly astounding. Blogs. Poured time and energy, someone distilling themselves into this personal, sharable medium. Blogs.
…
I guess to bring this post to an end… if you don’t have a blog, change that! (especially if I know you IRL, seriously). I wanna hear about you and your life! Start that quirky and personalised website. If you already do, tell me and share! Every one of them is awesome; from digital gardens to byte-based megacities. Fill them with you and share! I can’t wait to start reading :)
Oh, so very much this.
There was a time, a couple of decades and change ago, when almost all of the people I spent time with in my real life blogged. Nowadays, it’s far fewer. Ruth shares interesting bits of tech (plus Thames Path walks!), and I keep an eye out in case Gareth shares more ‘plane-related news or Andy takes a deeper dive into his music… but nowadays the active blogs I follow are, for the most part, people I know online (or, at least, people I knew online first, even if I’ve subsequently met them in person).
That’s not bad. I like meeting people online. And increasingly, the smallweb’s becoming better-interconnected and less-lonely than ever.
Daniel really puts it well:
Blogs allow for a deeper level of thought; not everything is well suited to an in-person chat. We sometimes need time to get our thoughts in order and detailed concepts are often much better understood in writing. It’s honestly a shame that we have confined ourself to short processing times and quick responses. A back and forth can sure be fun, but so can the meticulous; and nothing’s stopping you from chatting over the stuff you’ve written – imagine how insightful that could? Blogging really recaptures that “handwritten letter” spark.
Getting updates from people over text is kinda hard too. While I’ve been abroad, I have missed so many moments in peoples lives (good and bad), of which I usually only hear a summarised fraction. I get it though, asking is hard and responding is even harder; retyping a shortened version of something for the 5th time isn’t much fun. I dream of a time where more of my friends write blogs, a world where I can easily grasp and know the wheres and whats in someone’s life without feeling like I am nagging for details; where the focus is being a friendly part of their lives…
I don’t expect this repost to encourage any of my IRL friends to dust off their old blogs (or start new ones). But I can dream!
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