Blogitty Blog

Well, now that I’ve started one I suppose that means I should figure out what it is I want to use this blog for! I’ve resisted joining the blog community for a number of years. Mostly I think I’m just confused on what the purpose is. It makes sense if you’re an organization or a larger entity – in that case there are things you want to communicate to others about your group and the blog is a perfect method to push out news content. But for an individual like myself? I’m sure no one cares one way or the other if I sat in traffic for hours today or if I brushed my teeth this morning (we’re not face to face after all). So I don’t intend to make this my online diary. Diaries are meant to be private anyways – or are they? It’s interesting that one of the most useful materials for research once it ends up in an archive is the diary. It is the day to day experiences of people, ordinary rather than extraordinary, that record history in a meaningful way. After all, we don’t want the historical record to include only the actions of big-wigs and superstars do we? We need it to be inclusive of a plurality of voices, and most people just don’t leave evidence of what they do on purpose because they don’t think anyone could possibly be interested. Maybe blogs can counteract this. The medium can empower people to think, “well I don’t know if anyone would be interested in what I have to say… but who cares?!” I’m in the “privacy” of my own home writing to who-knows-who because I can. I can write a diary, or use it to speak out about issues I care about – or I can just type zzzzzzzzzzzzzzz for an entire page and laugh at my own absurdity. Oh the power!!! In the end it’s probably more important that I just add my voice to the stream, whatever it is I end up saying, because who knows? Maybe one day a researcher of modern history, hyped up on five cups of coffee and poring through pages and pages of content will stumble upon my words. He or she will stop, re-read the last sentence over again. Their eyes will grow wide and the breath will catch. AH HA! This is it!!! The missing piece of the puzzle that sheds a light on the history of people in the 21st century!

Or maybe not.