why I blog

This is my response to Laicie's question "Why I blog", but I've been jotting down notes and thinking about this idea since this summer so I'm glad that her question pushed me to finally put all these thoughts into one post.

Blogging takes up quite a bit of my "free" time (read: not working, sleeping, in class, cooking, etc) and sometimes bleeds into time that isn't strictly "free" as well! There have definitely been times when I have asked Nick why I am even bothering to blog and why I should keep doing it because there have been times when nothing I shared seemed good enough and it's seemed like no one really cared. It was at those times, when it would have been so much easier to give up, that I realized that I blog for me more than anyone else. 

Don't get me wrong, I love you. I don't know everything about you or even most things, but I appreciate your comments and that you care enough about what I share to read my blog, but I have kept blogging when it's only been Nick and his wonderful grandparents reading because writing is a part of me. And blogging pushes me to write everyday.

I don't think that all bloggers are writers, and this isn't a criticism, because there are some amazingly beautiful blogs that are mainly images which draw me in every time that I look at them; but I consider myself primarily a blog writer. The images I share are very important to me, but most often they supplement what I choose to write about on that particular day. I see blogging as this new form of writing that adds images and interactivity between the writer and the reader in a way that hasn't really existed until recently. In my English Novel class we've talked about the evolution of writing and how blogging builds on books by becoming literature for a technological society; each day there's new content and feedback from readers.

However, to contradict what I just said, I also blog to push myself to become a better photographer and to document my life at a time when there doesn't always seem like much to document.

I blog to discover my passion and purpose in life and I think that the quote Ann Marie shares by Howard Thurman is exactly how I feel: "Don't ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive, and go do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive." 

The last reason that I blog--although it's the one that I get the most instantaneous gratification and obvious rewards from--is that blogging allows me to "meet" people I never would have otherwise. I blog to find kindred spirits, like-minded souls and even more so, people who I connect with even though we're different.  I really mean this and not just as a way to end on a good note, so if you are ever in Provo (at least for the next 8 months) or San Francisco (where we'll be moving to at the start of next fall) I would love to meet you, have lunch with you and let you sleep in our spare (but chaotic) room. And if you think of Anne Shirley when you read about being allowed the honor of a spare room then maybe we could be more than just blog friends, maybe we're  meant to be bosom friends. (Nerd Fest!)

Images were taken by Sylvia Magleby