Blog slogging

I put the cart before the horse in publishing my piece on party democracy yesterday. No introductory "Why I'm writing this blog" piece to start things off and justify why exactly the world needs yet another blog, this blog, now.

The problem is of course, that it doesn't now, and it likely won't in the future.

When I sat down to start this blog some now embarrassingly large number of weeks ago, I was caught between my own inner urge to write, and the horrible realization that I didn't exactly know what I was planning to write about. A blog should have a theme, a cause, oh come on, a pet peeve surely? Simply everyone on the web has one!

Of course I realize that what I really want is to be relevant and important. And the desire to be relevant and important is a colossal bit of vanity on my part, but there it is. Paralysis ensues and nothing gets written because others are saying all the Important & Relevant things, and I can't possibly hope to have a bigger insight or say it better than them, so why bother?

Still don't have an answer to that one. I suppose I have Bob Rae to thank for getting me started and revealing I do own at least one pet peeve. I expect to elaborate on it in the future, but it won't by any means be an obsession. I have many interests, and I've noticed in now over 40 years that these interests are cyclical. They wax and wane with the phases of the moon, the seasons, the sunspot cycle --there's a veritable astrology of my little obsessions-- and I'm sure this blog will chronicle their ascendency more accurately than I could chart them independently.

Writing is cathartic. Especially when done for publication I find it clarifies and improves thought. It helps one work through ideas and their consequences. In this way (I expect) writing a blog is a process more than a product, and so the readership (if it materializes) is in a certain way secondary for the blogger. Ideally the readership becomes a vital and important partner in that process --especially in keeping yours truly here firmly anchored and down-to-earth.

I do hope (and fear) that this blog will be read and commented upon by someone outside my immediate circle of family, friends, and acquaintances. But what Bob helped me see is that the only thing that matters truly is that it be of some small importance to me.