Post-Modern Blog Entry, or "On Blogging"

There's no real or prevailing thought or theme on my mind this morning, but I feel like I need to post. That makes me analytical--the fact that I feel compelled to write here, even as I'm not particularly inspired, angry, sad, or anxious at the moment. Am I saying "hey! look at me! I'm blogging!" or am I enjoying the expressive outlet that this is? Personally, I think I'm trying to show off my ability to look at the act of blogging in a post-modern way--the blog that eats itself and then spits itself back out...whatever that means.

Why do people do this? It's an amazing thing, really. People bearing their souls, expressing themselves into an ether--do they hope someone will listen? Is it cathartic? More cathartic than conversation with a friend, or a good psychologist, or watching "Ordinary People" and wishing you had a good psychologist like that guy?

Bloggers put stuff out there, they tell their friends and family about it--sometimes, (hi Mom) even though it might embarass them a bit.

I think that people sometimes draw more from the hope that someone will read their thoughts-- moreover their feelings--and give a damn. Or at least empathize. Moreso than I think we the blogonomous, realize sometimes.

Personally, the realist in me doesn't care about that so much. I put it out there for me and whoever wants to read it, and I feel I hit a nerve with people occasionally--both friends and relatives and people at large.

I was amazed and quite giddy when I got several non-solicited comments on my "Driving Tips" entry. Here's another point for analysis. I claim not to care, but let me see a comment when I didn't point a person to that page or otherwise solicit the read/comment and I don't know this person that commented. Certainly, that's a source of a smile. I crossed lines and got a reaction. Who doesn't like attention?

I've made some political entries. I took issue with myself for doing that. This isn't a political blog, and though I do care, and I'm a regular voter, and I try to read and stay informed about the issues, there are people who do that a lot better than me.

The problem lately is I tend to do more to keep my fingers firmly pressed against the pulse of the enemy, and that winds up making me enraged from time to time. Those are personal thoughts and feelings though--anger about a particular political situation. I was going to whine more about gas prices, but...

Anyway, if you can get your fingers on Hannity's neck to take his pulse, at least you got near to his throat. Ronald Regan my ass. This is not a political blog, though we all have political thoughts and feelings or anger about a particular situation, no matter what our leanings are, and I think it is healthy to express them.

So this all floats in the ether. Sometimes it becomes news. Sometimes the ether melts around a person, usually a person who is troubled, and this whole practice gets them into trouble--MySpace, a forum in which I just refuse to participate, has had its share of deviant users. More analysis--good/bad? These people would have been deviant anyway, was it better that they were deviant in an easy, traceable, "public" place?

I'm just asking, I don't know.

That pretty much sums it up. I'm just asking. I don't know.

Tell me.