On blogging and change

Last August, I was asked to start a blog as part of a class requirement.  At the time, I was anxiously uncertain.  I've never thought of myself as a blogger, or as a potential blogger, or as someone who would ever in their little life do anything remotely blog-like.  Part of it is my general aversion to social media...I cling to the idea of a quiet, inward life that I share with actual friends.  You know...in person.  As in, not on the internet.

But it was also largely because I had no idea why I'd do it.  As far as I saw it, there were three kinds of blogs.  The first are the genuinely awesome blogs that have been around for a long time and work collectively with multiple writers.  In that sense, me starting a blog would be like starting another non-profit - why would I try and go out on my own when thousands of others are already doing what I'm doing, but better?  Wouldn't it be smarter for me to just link up with another blog?  Shouldn't I be the bigger person and resist individualism, here? 

The second kind of blog are the grounded, personal kinds of blogs my friends have made to connect with other friends while they embark on their adventures.  I was not leaving a well-paid corporate job to couch surf to the midwest, nor was I traveling to South America for two years, or anything at all romantic worth blogging about.  My life is comparatively quite simple, really.

The third kind of blog, which most blogs are in my opinion, is pure self-promotional navel-gazing.  I don't know why, but I was fairly sure that if I started a blog, it would be like that.  It seemed to me that writing about my thoughts and feelings on a public cyber format for the multitudes to read seemd kinda...conceited.

But then I started blogging, and you know what?  I realized that it didn't have to be self-aggrandizing after all!  In fact, blogging came shockingly naturally to me.  Rather, I should say, writing comes quite naturally to me, and blogging is just a more public form of writing.  After working out the early kinks of the Academic Voice I'd straight-jacketed myself into over the years, I unearthed a warmer, more casual voice.  I remembered how much I had loved to write, to find the narrative, to arch the narrative back to a meaningful point.  I remembered how to discover these points as I was writing, to start writing without really knowing what I was saying until I knew I had already said it.  And remembering the sense of aliveness in writing, not for an assignment or because I had to, but out of the love of it.

More importantly, I soon found that I had.  Something.  To.  Say. 

And (ah, here comes the aggrandizing!) I feel as though this blog has been some of the best scholarship I've produced in graduate school.  If not the best, it has undoubtedly been the most meaningful.  It keeps me fresh.  It keeps me thinking.  It keeps me honest.  It challenges me to put out to known and unknown public eyes truths that I am not always so sure of, and others that I feel profoundly to be certain.  It has called on me to articulate in old and new ways a progressive vision of the world.  It has reminded me that the part of me that believes in fighting for this newer, better world has not been snuffed out by the academy, or upstate New York.  It has reminded me of why I came here, and what I will do when I leave.

Writing this blog has shown me that there is a fourth kind of blog - the kind where the dorkish among us work out our vision.  It's okay with me if no one reads it.  It's okay with me if I spend an hour writing a post instead of volunteering.  It's okay with me because life is, after all, a strenuous briefness, and I still have a lot to think about.

I'm not sure how long I will maintain this, but I am committed to riding it out a long as it still seems worthwhile.  And during this week where we seem to suddenly remember to be gracious, I thank you, dear readers, for joining me in the struggle and the celebration of the blogosphere.