598

Counting this one, I have generated 598 posts since I started this blog in November 2006. Wow. I am amazed I have been able to consistently post this long.

More than anything, this blog is a chronicle of my moods. That is why it has lasted this long, longer than any offline diary I have ever attempted to keep. The medium is definitely to be credited for this longevity. I can post images and songs. I can write a post about memories of my chilhood and have a link to a website with supplemental information. Most of all, I have an audience. No matter how small the number, someone out there is reading this. And that helps me focus and give direction to what I post. A writer is a teller of stories, and stories always need an audience. Like cooking for one person, it is no fun to write something that will never be seen by anybody but its creator. We are at our best when we are doing things for others to consume, be it cooking or writing.

The audience of this blog is mostly comprised of people I do not know in real life. I like it that way. It emboldens me to say stuff I would never say in front of other people, especially friends and family. I have also counted on the vastness of the Internet and my relative anonymity to keep my cover. My blog is a drop in a vast sea of blogs, with only a handful of regular readers.

Maybe I am being naive. If somebody really wanted to find out this blog, they would have no trouble doing so. I am not posting under a pseudonym. I post pictures of myself and my family. It would be easy to find. And yet, I am confident that nobody would go through the trouble.

I have never said anything that can put me at risk of anything other than embarrassment. I hardly talk about work, for example. And when I do, it is always in relation to my mood. I do not talk about actual sensitive work matters. To do so would be idiotic and not very professional.

Is there a value to this blog? What can it possibly contribute that is special and unique? I am just an ordinary person with an ordinary life. This blog is partly a record of that life. Maybe that is its value. As a trained historian, I like to think that in the distant future someone may look at this blog, among many others, as a glimpse of everyday life in the time we live in.