Why on earth would you (or me) want to start a blog?

Because the most ridiculous stock images involve fists.

I remember the first time I was invited to join Facebook. At the time, it was mainly for just posting pictures (in albums with odd arbitrary limits) and learning tidbits about how other people are (remember Facebook started with status updates that were titled like "Jeff is..."). But how much can we really convey about who we are simply through a status update. True, Facebook has since dropped the "[name] is" prefix from their status updates but the purpose remains the same; we want to tell the world (or a subset of it) a little about ourselves.

That is the goal of all social media but how much can we really express ourselves in such amputated forms as Twitter's 140 characters or any of the other forms of social media* out there? Because of this, I've decided to start a blog.

For the past few years, I've begun to realize that blogs are really beginning to define my daily reading routine. To me, these blogs have replaced most of my other sources of daily news and indeed, if I see a news story developing on Google News for instance, I will scan my favorite blogs to see who is covering them. If I read so many blogs, I figured I might as well start one.

Before I go any further, I should give specific shout-outs to my friends Lauren, Josh, and Lisa for blazing the path before me. Although I haven't followed all of their blogs religiously over the years, every time I read them I envy the fact that their thoughts, ideas, and personalities are simply on display for the world to see. Each time I've been reminded of their blogs, I have pushed myself a little more to figure out whether I should start a blog or not.

In the title of this post, I posed the question why should you start a blog mainly and not why I started a blog. And honestly the answer to that question is varied and complex for each individual. If you google around, you'll find many reasons why you should start a blog and why it will make you a better person in whatever you're doing. A lot of these benefits are really quite remarkable and can really only be achieved through blogging. And after you decide to start a blog, you can search for any number of resources that will guide you through crafting an excellent blog.

Beyond these benefits though, I like to focus on blogging as the act of writing. On his blog (which I just found), Jeff Goins provides the three simple reasons why he writes:

I write to express. I feel like myself when I’m writing. I write not for the purpose of being published or the intention of being read, but for the thrill of putting pen to paper. I write for love of the craft, for the sake of writing itself.

I write to understand. I do not write because all the answers are in my possession. I write for the same reason Flannery O’Connor did — because I don’t know what I think until it is written. Because by writing, I am able to see things more clearly.

I write to remember. Writing lets me grasp life in ways that would otherwise escape me. It helps me connect with God and the universe and reminds that I’m still breathing and there’s a reason why.

These are the quintessential reasons why I think anybody should start a blog. There are numerous outlets for writing and more importantly for sharing your writing (hence why I began this discussion with social media) but a blog offers a most effective way of both achieving these three things as well as connecting with an audience. There are certainly less lofty goals for starting a blog such as marketing or simply because its expected of you in your career but we can choose what we get out of an experience.

This blog I intend to be an exploration of my own writing and ideas on everything I am curious about. In some ways, this will be an outgrowth of my Facebook feed where I post articles and opinions that I have learned something from but this also will be my writing outlet. Facebook does not provide me the space with which I can write these long posts and enjoy all of the true benefits of blogging. As the reader, I hope that you will come away from this blog with a perspective you have not considered or a piece of information that you were unaware of before.

--
*I do not profess to be an expert in social media nor am I even remotely familiar with all of the options available to me out there. I just want to add this because I'm sure that somebody out there will say that there is certainly some form of social media out there that I haven't tried yet. That may very well be true but that's another reason why I started a blog. I want to learn more and maybe this post will lead me to the veritable nirvana of social media sites. Who knows!