What's in a blog?

blog: (noun) a weblog; an online diary; a personal chronological log of thoughts published on a Web page.

Sometimes random-seeming thoughts strike me at random-seeming times. Like today: as I was leaving the gym, I suddenly started thinking about blogging and bloggers and blog readers and the voyeuristic nature of it all and why people start blogs in the first place and why people read those blogs (particularly the ones I find rather mundane but seem to have a huge following). Since I am a blogger and blog-reader, thinking this may not be that random but my usual post-gym ponderings tend to lean towards the "I'm hungry" way of thinking.

All these thoughts of course led to the obvious first question: why do I blog? The simple answer: I like to write and keeping a blog makes me feel like I should be more diligent about my writing. I also find it kind of fun. And there's a part of me that wonders if there's someone reading this who I don't know, who is in some far corner of the world and is actually enjoying my ramblings. I think that is really why I blog; this far-fetched idea that somewhere out there I have one rabid fan who just can't get enough of me.

The next logical question would, of course, be: do I read blogs? And I do. Mainly blogs of friends, but there are a couple others I read. (I keep meaning to post a list on my main blog page, but haven't yet. Bad blogger!)

I guess the reasons for blogging are simple enough: to share opinions, to be accountable, to keep friends up-to-date, to be provocative (particularly if one is a passive person in general), to kick-start a writing career, to channel their inner Carrie Bradshaw, to carry on journal-writing tendencies in another medium. And many, many more I'm sure.

So maybe this whole pontificating on blogs isn't as big a thing as I initially thought. Perhaps blogging is so overdone now that it's irrelevant. Perhaps we're just a society of voyeurs. Perhaps I'm overthinking a very simple thing. I tend to do that.