Tuesday, January 17, 2012
What to Blog and How to Blog and Why to Blog
I am age 63. I have been on line every day, blogging since 1998 with AOL dial-up and a free geocities site where I "blogged" by creating html pages (so perhaps I was a blogger before there was the word) ... I spent years on Yahoo chat, Yahoo Egroups, IRC, various forums. Now I have 2000 friends on Facebook and 300 in G+. My FB situation is unique BECAUSE I went to St. John's Annapolis '67-'71 and all courses for all 4 years are REQUIRED (no electives) so all my friends from SJC, even those who graduated last year, read all the same so-called 100 great books of the western world. We all have a lot in common. Sociologists who study social networking claim that no matter how many friends we have, we tend to closely interact with only 20 to 40 and I find that to be true. I have perhaps 20 real friends where we from time to time privately discuss every imaginable aspect of our personal life. I have only ONE such friend so far here in Google Plus and she is in the far east. I notice a great many GIFs many of which are amusing, of cats and people jumping through fire or into toilets or out of toilets. Many of the Gifs are amusing. Some are distracting so I mute them. The point that I want to make is that my years of on line experience consist of simply sharing my thoughts, ideas, ... my life. IF you follow me and read my posts then you get to know me as a person. Many of the people who post dazzling Gifs etc reveal ABSOLUTELY NOTHING about their personal lives. That is fine. That is their choice. I blog each and every day because it is my main form of human contact. My on line friends are actually CLOSER to me than people I meet and see in real life, and it is precisely because ALL WE HAVE ARE WORDS, so we have to share, express, confide. On-line romances are to a females advantage BECAUSE guys often do not open up... so you might date someone for 5 years, bowling, beach, dinners, movies, but never really share, communicate. On line all the guy has is WORDS. So these are my thoughts on blogging/posting.
