Ursula LeGuin on Perceptions: "If you see a whole thing - it seems that it's always beautiful. Planets, lives.... But close up a world's all dirt and rocks. And day to day, life's a hard job, you get tired, you lose the pattern."
March 29 will be my "blog-aversary." Over those months I have occasionally written "taking stock" posts, where I sort of "look at the lint in my own navel." Out of 271 posts to South by Southwest, 44 of them were relatively self-revealing. The rest were generally confined to news digests on a subject of interest to me, analytical pieces, or my own opinions. From analysis I found that I do the more personal writing (about 15% of the total) for a number of reasons. I wonder if other bloggers have these same internal drivers. With each I have linked to a previous post to illustrate what I mean:
- Sorting out my confusion
- Recognition of others - both positive and negative
- Regaining my perspective
- Marking holidays
- Processing my feelings
- Sharing ideas and information
- Letting others know me
I also learned that I am am rather shy about self disclosure, but not about expressing my opinions. Most of my stuff is political opinion. Blogging for many of us is getting things off our chests, venting, blowing off steam, complaining--what ever you want to call it.
Because I am a political junkie, I have been forced to work hard to maintain my optimism in the face of five years of an administration I would not choose. The resulting negative feelings brought up on a regular basis -- fear and anxiety, discomfort with conflict, and anger -- have often been handled by writing a blog post. With it I regain my perspective, adjust to "the next bad thing," and settle myself down.
Very often when the news seems particularly bad, finding something or someone worthy of recognition gives me a lift, and might give a lift to others. Being helpful, I have discovered, is one of my drivers for blogging. After all, I am a therapist by training and an optimist by nature, and retirement has not "cured" me of these afflictions.
So I will blog on into April, the time of spring showers and blooming flowers.
Tags: blogging commentary writing politics optimism current events
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