Why I Blog

I have, again, been tasked with writing about a certain subject. I won’t go into why I absolutely oppose the topic I will be covering in the next 472 words, but if you’re interested in a post like that, check out this post of a friend. Anywho, getting right into then…

Recently, I was tasked with writing a “reflection on this article.” The article is entitled “Why I Blog”, and I’m supposed to call this post the same thing… Ah. I said I wouldn’t delve into the rage I have for some of these assignments.

The article explains the deep history of the author’s blogging and journalism career and why he blogs (surprise right?). Now I have to write a reflection on this article… Fortunately, I don’t have to explain why I blog, I just have to reflect on the article. I find it rather interesting that the author decides to explain why he blogs, but just not on his blog. If I were trying to read the news on The Atlantic (Not that I would trust that kind of source), I would be a little shocked if the recommended article for me is called “Why I Blog”. I don’t really want to know why you blog, I’m not reading your blog am I?

Wow… about five-hundred words huh? It’s easy to rant about anything else but this is just… Okay. Only 260 words left. Back into it now.

The article is almost… poetic? I don’t know how to explain it, but the author felt that it was important to make blogging sound like a religion. I’m not saying that I hate this entire blogging thing, not at all. I’ve enjoyed expelling my thoughts onto a computer, but it’s not a life changing thing. I’m not any smarter or more successful. And I doubt that this author is as well. Afterall, if blogging was as life changing as the author made it sound, why would they be writing for The Atlantic?

I just read through a paragraph of the article, and I’m kind of shocked. I joked about the author making a blogging a religion, but this is different. The author says “To blog is therefore to let go of your writing in a way, to hold it at arm’s length, open it to scrutiny, allow it to float in the ether for a while, and to let others, as Montaigne did, pivot you toward relative truth.” The whole ‘pivot you toward relative truth’ doesn’t sound like a religion at all… more like a cult in my opinion. Relative truth? Ah. Shivers.

The author also mentions that jazz and blogging have an intimate relationship… I don’t even want to talk about that.

In conclusion, I was bored, confused and terrified all at once by this article. It’s the strangest thing I’ve read in awhile. Maybe this is just the blind rage of a high school student not wanting to engage in anything academic, like reflecting on an article. But there, it’s done, I reflected on the article. And if there’s anything I did wrong, I didn’t see the rubric attached to the assignment, so that’s my defense. And this is 532 words.