Why.

A friend of mine recently asked about the technical details of creating and maintaining a blog. I hadn’t talked about the mechanics of this blog in a while, so it was fun to kind of remember what it took to get this thing going and what is running in the background to bring this alleged enjoyment to the dear reader. For the curious, this blog runs on WordPress on a wind-powered server in my own server-space. This makes maintaining the blog just a little more challenging in that I need to stay on top of doing software updates and the like so I don’t compromise the security of the site. If anyone has any further questions as to the technicalities of the blog, you’re always free to drop me a line.

After my friend and I discussed the mechanics of the blog and I offered the alternate suggestion of using the wordpress.com platform (which is essentially the same thing that I do, only using WordPress’ own servers, which are always patched), he asked me one more question: “Why do I blog?”

You know, I haven’t thought about this one in a while either. My blog is nearly 12 years old. Back when I started blogging, the whole personal blog thing was in it’s heyday. People were just starting to see the journalistic possibilities of the blogging platform. I didn’t even know it was a “blog” when I started it; I just started writing as an exercise for building webpages.

But what motivates me to blog? Mainly creativity. I don’t do nearly enough creative writing. I love painting a picture with words and it seems like I never have enough time to do that sort of thing. I try to write something at least once a day, but when I put myself on some sort of schedule I run into writer’s block. The words just have to flow when they can flow. Using my iPad to blog has helped a lot in this regard.

I have zero interest in making money off my blog. There are no ads on my blog. There is no paywall. I don’t think there’s a problem with charging to view a blog if you have something credible and interesting to share, but if you’re just writing along the same lines as the things I tend to write about, I don’t think that it’s worth charging users for. It’s just my personal preference.

I know that I write in my blog because I enjoy sharing my slice of life with the world. On the occasions where I’ve wrestled with something, emotional, mentally, physically, psychotically, whatever, there has been some comfort in being able to read the blog of someone have a similar experience. One doesn’t feel nearly alone in the world when evidence points to the contrary.

I guess I also write for my personal amusement. Earl laughs at me because I will occasionally read a blog entry from a few years ago and laugh at myself. That helps me keep in good spirits when I might be feeling the winter blahs or whatever.

So I’m hoping that my friend will start a blog and share his life experience with those that may be interested. There’s not a lot of personal blogs left these days; it seems everyone goes for the quick updates via the social networks.

Once in a while it’s good to let the paragraphs flow. I know I enjoy it.