I was re-reading Dan's manifestito today, and I realize that, somewhat deliberately, I've never talked about why I have this site, or why I update it almost every day. I still don't know if I should explain that, or if anyone even cares if I do. But that's my name up there, so I guess I can do whatever the hell I want...
I guess I could start by saying that most of Dan's rant applies to me as well. That's probably why he and I link to each other fairly often, similar thoughts. I started running this weblog back around the time that "weblog" was first being shortened to "blog", but I've never been very interested in the form so much as the function. I'm a pretty extroverted guy when in public, but I'm probably never happier than when I'm reading about something new I don't know about. The only way to "meet" someone while browsing the web from the comfort of my little apartment has been the blogging community.
And that's cool; Meeting fellow bloggers must be a pretty appealing concept to me if it can get me to go visit Texas in a couple of weeks. But that's more of a result than a motivation. So why then? Well, because I like having a little place where I can put my thoughts and rants and, yes, peeves. Last week, thanks to Wired, somewhere around 5,000 people read my Peeves page alone. But I don't expect them to care about what is bugging me on a day-to-day basis.
However, I do think that a consistent peek into someone's thoughts, the parts of themselves that they choose to reveal in this sort of forum, does a remarkable job of helping to find similar minds. And that's pretty valuable. I find it a lot more fun and effective to learn from people with similar minds to my own, and I like that this medium of the web that I spend so much time working on, and apologizing for, and talking about, and arguing over, can give me something back by giving me a little digital coaster for the times when my brain spills over.
And best of all, sometimes you people email me. Maybe because it feeds my unattractively large ego, but hearing from people is incredibly satisfying: Positive feedback for me, on thoughts and writings that I would probably have been doing anyway. So affirming, no wonder it's addictive.
And oh, should I add an "about" section?
