Everyday Randomness

Late last night I was on the phone with a friend of mine who travels a lot at night. He was driving down the interstate bored and decided to call me when he pulled off for a break. He often calls me on these road trips because he knows there’s a good chance I’m going to be awake, and he gets lonely out there driving alone at night. I’d probably do the same thing in his shoes.

As we were talking I mentioned I was working on a new layout for one of my blogs. That’s when he asked me that question I’m sure every blogger has heard at least once during their blogging era.

Why do I blog?

I would have liked to have told him it was because I enjoyed giving my readers something new and interesting, but that would be a lie. The truth is I do it for me. I do it for my sanity.

Some will say they blog to become the best in their niche or topic, but not I. Blogging is purely something I enjoy. It’s something that brightens up my day when I’m having a bad one. It’s an outlet when I need to vent. It’s a place to log memories I want to cherish.

Blogging also gives me a means to expand my own creativity. It’s a learning experience everyday, and I think I’ve at least sharpened my writing skills a tad during my stint as a blogger. It keeps my mind going when I’m having one of those “duh” moments. It gives me a reason to believe my learning experiences are far from over and I’m putting my writing skills to the test on a daily basis.

The part about logging memories really hit me hard a few weeks ago when I lost some things that meant something to me. Those items I lost were things from my childhood that I had purposely planned to keep because I knew they would mean something to me one day. Even though I couldn’t tell you everything that was destroyed, the fact that everything meant so much to me that I purposely kept it for a later time period of my life told me how important each item was to me at that time.

Those items were taken away from me and destroyed, but my blogging is mine. It’s something no one can take away from me. Yes, things could get deleted, I could stop paying my hosting bill and lose my accounts, or my computer could be destroyed, but I make backups for that very reason.

I would like to say I blog because it’s my career, but that’s far from the truth. Yes, I do make money from some of my blogs, but at this point it’s by no means a career. It isn’t a livelihood that supports my family. It’s something I enjoy doing, and if I can make a few dollars in the mean time, so be it.

So what’s the real point of this post?

By asking me that question my friend got me thinking about all the times I’ve stumbled upon posts by other bloggers outlining the reasons why they blog. Over and over again I skim through yet another post telling us all that the blogger decided to blog because they want to be the best in that particular subject, they want to earn money, or they want fame.

I understand we’re living in a Web 2.0 world where marketing blogs are overflowing in our vast online atmosphere, but what happened to blogging just because you want to blog?

So, I’m asking the question you’ve heard time and time again.

Why exactly do you blog?