Blogging: A Wall of Mirrors

The Truth of the Truth: For all of us writers, we blog because we fear the disappearance of our existence. Through our words our spirits may live on, no matter how trivial our lives are. What other reasons could we possibly have for rambling on days after days about the moment we bought a Starbucks coffee after shopping at the supermarket?

Right. Blogging aids our self-exploration and perhaps a sudden discovery of truth while we’re typing these words and phrases away. We want to be surprised by ourselves. And we monitor our behavior as a start to that.
But the truth is: these surprising discoveries are truths born out of a banal life. It is one little hero’s existence and road to self-actualization, but really, most possibly the same life has been lived a thousand times before we were born.
We live, we make mistakes, we pick up lessons, we live on.

Graphomania describes this urge and passion to write books. To write about our lives, to impose ourselves onto others: to make a mark for our existence, as a thousand bloggers scream, “look at me, look at me, look at me.”

Kundera summarized the phenomenon of Graphomania well:
a. It happens because we are well-looked after, educated citizens who have spare time on our hands to think of the purpose of our existence
b. It happens because there is a high degree of individual isolation in this society; we know that people don’t really care when we speak to them, even our own kids and wives.
c. It happens because there is no revolution and change in the society.

I find the second point most intriguing: remember when Lester in American Beauty commented on how he is still able to surprise himself? This is precisely the point: we are getting harder and harder to be recognized by and in this society. Nothing surprises us anymore; some blogger topped two thousand views in one week – do we care? Bush said something that uproared the public – do we care? They found the earth’s biggest octopus – do we care? Fuel prices rise – we just worry about it.
Bottom line is, with the increase in population and amount of brains, we find ourselves increasingly anonymous – yes, anonymous. That’s why we start a blog to state our existence. Do it for ourselves, and maybe provide life details for others with a fetish to read and follow and stalk our daily stories. It’s almost the same fuzzy logic why blog stats are so comforting: 150 views a day may equal or be better than a cup of warm cappuccino.

I have no grudges against this whole bloggers stuck in a wall of mirrors of bloggers thing. It is only those bloggers who write, “look at me, look at me, look at me” that are of any annoyance to me.

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