Not Just a Diary

Summary – Blogs are a window into someone’s world. They can be a useful connection if you have some kind of personal problem, whether you use them as a cry for help, or you didn’t even know that you had a problem until someone else noticed it.

I don’t have a blog other than these articles on www.blog.m6.net which is the blog site of the company that I work for. I’ve started a few, same as I’ve started to keep a diary a few times, but I just don’t stick with them. Perhaps deep down I doubt anyone cares about my day-to-day life, and I’m not anxious to post my deep and intense innermost feelings. I don’t wear my heart on my sleeve, and I don’t want to post it on the Internet.

However, for those of a blogger bent who want to share their lives with others, it’s an excellent idea. You can share your life with the world, letting people on other continents know what it’s like to live where you live, and what it’s like to be who you are. Blogs are good for non-bloggers too, letting people on the other side of an issue, or a war, or the planet, read about what life is like on your side. A few years ago I met a woman with a terrible secret which sounded like some insane conspiracy theory. I tried to organize a blog for her since she wanted to share her information, and because I wanted to hear about any further developments. Sadly, I was unable to set it up that day and subsequently lost touch with her.

Oddly enough, blogs have grown beyond being a window into the blogger’s life, becoming more in the realm of entertainment. A blogger friend of mine won’t be able to write in her blog for two weeks. If it were just a diary she could just say, ‘See you in two weeks’. Instead, she is having two guest bloggers fill in. Isn’t a guest blogger like putting two chapters of someone else’s autobiography in the middle of your own? I assume that the guest bloggers will give a window into THEIR own lives, and I suspect, they’ve already proven themselves to her in their own blogs, so her ‘readers’ could simply read their blogs for two weeks. Clearly blogs are more involved than I realized.

Blogs can make you famous or let you be anonymous.  You can vent your concerns about yourself to an anonymous world. Or, you can get help from strangers who may judge you but won’t be able to tell anyone you know what their judgment is. This is of course unless your friends read your blog, which I consider as part of the point of having a blog. Then they will read your venting, and any strangers’ replies to it no matter how judgmental they are. On the other side of the equation, your friends can help without you having to go through the trauma of telling them directly. Plus, any of the strangers reading your blog might notice something wrong that you aren’t aware of. A medical student might tell you what the tingling in the soles of your feet might mean so that you can consult a doctor before it gets more serious. A German housewife might notice that alcohol features more and more in your life, or that you seem to be shifting between joy and sorrow with worrying regularity. More than a window on someone’s life or simple entertainment, blogs are another way to connect with both friends and strangers, anywhere, anytime.

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