Why Do I Blog?

This post asks a very fundamental question, "Why Do I Blog?". Really, I don't have to blog. It takes time that I should be using for other things. I am not a great writer and it is sometimes frustrating trying to get my thoughts across. In a previous post, Who Reads Your Blog?, I discussed how I could obtain statistics on how many people were reading my blog and where in the world the readers are from. In another previous post, Where Do You Blog? , I provided any potential reader with insight into my home office.

But what about my Blog? How did I get started? What is my subject material? Why do I do this? And is it worth the effort?

I started blogging about four years ago. I knew about blogs and followed a few. I started following some Blogs by retirees that I knew from work. Two in particular were living in the Southwest in the winter and traveling to other parts of the country during the summer. I found it interesting to be able to see through their Blogs what their activities were and where they were travelling in other parts of the country. After a couple of years, these people stopped travelling as much, stopped blogging as much and pretty much post their information on Facebook. I miss their Blogs.

I found out how easy it was to start a Blog and soon had mine up and running. I Blogged about sailing adventures, bicycle trips, hiking, camping and more mundane things like snowfall. I think that I tend to write "newsy" posts about what I am doing and less about social ills and politic rants. Even though I tend to write more about my sailboat racing, my Blog is not dedicated to a specific subject.

But why? I guess I thought people might be interested in what I was doing. Especially after my retirement 3-1/2 years ago. There might be some ego involved in that. I started providing a post sailboat race description with a chart of the boats track and a description of what did or did not work for us during the race. Initially other racers commented on these posts, but as time went on, readership went down and other sailors on the docks continued complaining that I was not sharing any information with them. Strange! I wrote some daily reports about things like "it was a nice day so I went for a long bicycle ride". One smart aleck commented that "is that what you retirees do, get up, look outside and go for a ride each day?" When I was repowering my Ford Bronco, I posted pictures and write ups of my progress, much to the dismay of a few people who insisted my blog was a "sailing blog". Can't please everyone. One thing I have never done is changed my style for others.

So back to the question of why? I find that a lot of my writings are a way of reminding myself of what I did. I find myself going back to posts I wrote about previous races so that I can study what I did and what our track was and how I can plan for a future race on the same course. If I am using the blog as a journal, than maybe I should be journaling instead of blogging. Really, I doubt if there are really many people who follow my blog anyway. And I "share" my blog on Facebook, so most of my friends read it and comment there when I throw it onto my Timeline. I suspect very few follow my Blog as a blog.

Some of the blogs that I follow seemed to have a great following. Why is that? Maybe it is the wit of the writer? Or the sarcasm? Or the social/political ranting? It seems strange to me that people make a whole career out of blogging. I don't think I could do that, there are too many other things to do than spend time blogging continuously. It might be time to shutdown "Dan's Blog"!