Blogs Shmogs

I have always scoffed at blogs. Who reads a blog? Your friends? Strangers who don't even know you? We hold our privacy dearly to our chest, and yet we want to make our lives so public. We strive to reach the public light that celebrities, politicians, and athletes share and yet we think it is so rude when someone takes your picture without asking, or stares at you for a second longer than is appropriate.

As I read my brother's blog, I thought to myself what he was accomplishing by making his new and ambitious quest of traveling the world public knowledge. Who, besides his family and friends, really cares about a trip around the world? Everybody. Our culture has become increasingly public over the decades; MTV's The Real World was the first major movement in our time on this front. Facebook, MySpace, and now Blogs are all inventions of people wanting to make their life public. And the public responds.

Specific blogs have made the news. MySpace has become one of my friend's top place for picking up girls. Sound strange? Well, yes, yes it is. But in the grand scheme, it isn't. If we were to rewind 30-40 years, pre-internet, guys would have paid bundles to know a girl's interests, dislikes, music of choice, and see pictures of them before ever going on a date. "Blind date" should no longer be common nomenclature with inventions like MySpace.

So what is my goal for this blog. The title is derived from a short story I wrote, and plan to publish, as a college thesis. The reference is the difficulty we have in being real; how hard it can be to say what we think and mean. Why is it so harmful to be frank?

I do not plan to make this solely a philosophical blog, though that is how it has begun, nor do I expect anyone to read it. I know for a fact my friends will either avoid reading this or give me a very hard time for having created such a thing, but what this comes down to is my ultimate aspiration in life: to be a writer. To be in the public light, you must practice being in the public light. To be a writer, you must practice writing.

While my fiction will remain private until some highly intelligent publishing house or magazine picks it up, I think it is good to get my thoughts out for the public eye to see.