Meta bolg

Having a blog is rather like having a camera. When you have a camera, particularly in the first enthusiastic phase, you tend to look at the world and a rather different way. Perhaps I should say "I" do. I will be constantly on the lookout for aesthetic moments – ones that I can capture and take home with me. Rather than simply seeing, and appreciating what I see, I regard what I see as a commodity that can be kept. Of course, a visual replica of what I see does not have the same richness as the original experience: there is no other sensory context for the sight.

As soon as I started to keep a blog, a part of me was always on the lookout for things that I would like to record later. Ideas that occurred to me, interactions with other people, and things that I read and found interesting enough to share with others. Another side of me struggles with this slightly. Rather as with the camera, it leads to a situation where I feel I am not fully partaking of my life.

On the one hand, I very much appreciate having a receptacle for my thoughts. I have always been the kind of person that has a lot of ideas. I rarely take things at face value, but instead churn and process them until I understand or finally give up trying to understand, usually because I have lost interest. If I feel as though I have understood something well, I want to share it with others, so a blog presents me with a great opportunity to do that.

Writing a blog has made me appreciate other's blogs more. People are interesting and there is something about the blog format that allows these qualities to come through. Of course, some blogs are done in a professional or other specialised context, but even then the writers' personality often shows through. And of course the other great thing about blogs is that they are so immediate – one can write about one's experience or understanding immediately.