Terry Whalin linked to an interesting article recently that was written by Andrew Sullivan for The Atlantic magazine called "Why I Blog." It's a fascinating piece that chronicles the early days of blogging and his journey with this medium that so many of us have come to love.
Early in the article, Sullivan makes a statement about something I've thought quite a bit about:
No columnist or reporter or novelist will have his minute shifts or constant small contradictions exposed as mercilessly as a blogger’s are. A columnist can ignore or duck a subject less noticeably than a blogger committing thoughts to pixels several times a day. A reporter can wait—must wait—until every source has confirmed. A novelist can spend months or years before committing words to the world. For bloggers, the deadline is always now. Blogging is therefore to writing what extreme sports are to athletics: more free-form, more accident-prone, less formal, more alive. It is, in many ways, writing out loud.
I love the fact that blogging exposes small contradictions. People can easily dig into the archives of any blog if its been around long enough and find inconsistencies in what the blogger writes. I don't really see them as contradictions or inconsistencies though. Instead I see them as visual evidence of growth or sometimes just lateral change.
The normal decision making process is all about contradictions. As we are challenged in our thinking about any given issue, be it personal or otherwise, we begin to have an internal conversation with ourselves wondering if the other side might be right; wondering if our starting point was invalid; wondering if we should dig a little deeper. Eventually we come to a decision. Maybe we change our mind, maybe we change our view ever so slightly, but whatever the case, a shift occurs, and sometimes it isn't even noticeable on the outside for others to see.
Blogging on the other hand captures all of the little wonderings and self doubts and everybody can see them. It records subtle shifts and then stores them in our archives. When I first started blogging, I was tempted to delete old posts for that reason, but I realized that having such things on record is good. It helps me to see how my thought process works and it reminds me that many of the things I'm adamant about today might become next years mea culpa.
