The Nature of Blogs

"Too much talking these days. Talk talk talk. This country would get along much better if people learned how to suffer in silence." - Mr. Wednesday in Neil Gaiman's American Gods

I remember when this fad started. I got one and Nikki already had one and Meagan's was well-established. We thought we'd use them to vent. You spill your soul to the blog because you don't want to spill it to people. Then you realize you're basically telling your friends anyway and you only say half the shit you mean to. I still won't write any of my real problems into mine. The closest I came to that was a few posts when I first started. I think it never really was about having a shoulder to cry on. I think it was never about what you said, but how you said it.

It's not so much venting as revealing the personality you've been hiding. I can see that in any of the blogs I read. I can see Nikki's instability and Brandon's depression and Kaitlin's extreme insecurity and the fact that behind all the drugs and sex and partying, Meagan is just a scared little girl who is desperately clinging to what stability she can find. And in mine I can see less of the arrogant bastard I am in real life and more of the insecure, paranoid, lonely jackass that I am in my own head. It becomes not an expression of your fears or doubts or sob stories so much as an expression of you as you really are. We read and learn. Read about the events and the dreams and the terrors and learn perspectives we never knew were there. It's nice that it turns out this way. As friends grow closer, what they think becomes irrelevant. It's how and why and what makes them tick that we care about. How do I make you happy? Why are you down? What can I do to help?

Blogs were never about venting. They were about growing the whole time.