New Beginnings

     Well I decided to start this back up after deleting all of my old posts. I think this time around I will actually try to post everyday about whatever happens to be on my mind. I don't think I'm going to "advertise" that I've started blogging again because I'm not really looking for any sort of commentary on what I choose to write about.
     Today's topic is going to be about why people blog at all. When I originally heard about what  "blog" was it was described to me as being an online diary, which confused me because I always thought the point of a diary was to write down your thoughts and feelings for only you to ever read and publishing them on the Internet seemed a bit contradictory. It also seemed to be a sort of attention grab to me as well as a pretty egotistical thing to do. What makes your thoughts or opinions so damned special? Why does anyone care about what you're feeling today? Of course I have to point out that writing my own blog now seems to make me a bit hypocritical but I'll touch on that a little bit later here.
     I've since come to see that not every blog has to be about touchy feely emotions and the "emo" associations I attached to it. There are so many different blogs out there about so many different subjects that I feel a bit stupid for not seeing the future in them and being so dismissive about them. There are certainly plenty of the "all about me" blogs out there just drowning in their own self importance but I would say on the whole there are far more positive, helpful blogs out there.
    The reason I waited as long as I did to join the proverbial party was because I didn't want to join the attention grabbing culture I believe our youth is perpetuating. Whether it's the constant facebook updates letting out intimate details of their personal lives or the twitter updates on the most mundane of everyday activity or the incessant instagram self photographers out there, I lumped the blogosphere in with all of that perceived narcissism. Now, however, I see the positives that can come and perhaps some of the catharsis that being able to go back and track your thoughts or feelings over a period of time can have on a person. I know that when I went back and read my original posts it was quite the trip to see what was rolling around my mind back then. While there were some points that brought out a sense of pride there were definitely others that I was happy I could delete.
      As far as the hypocritical notion of now restarting my own blog I suppose I tell myself that I really am documenting my own state of being in this moment and am not doing it for some sense of self satisfaction or return commentary from any potential readers. One of the thing I learned from doing this the first time around was that once I knew people were reading and giving me that feedback I became more self aware about what I was writing and instead of just speaking off the cuff, I was deliberately trying to write in a "voice" that wasn't always my own. Hopefully I will have learned from my mistake.
      I'll wrap up this post with the fact that I am very excited to be back at the blogging if only because I enjoy writing in general. Maybe this will give me the push to write the stories I've wanted to write but didn't have the courage or confidence to before. On a completely unrelated side note the baseball playoffs are in full swing and as always go Cards!