In dispraise of blogging

I don't like the idea of blogging. Not at all.

Yes, partly it is my Neo-Luddite distaste for technology. The Internet is too profuse: it challenges, overwhelms my inner calm. But I've never liked the idea of keeping a paper diary either. There seems to be something so desperately needy, attention-seeking, praise-demanding about it. (Nobody ever keeps a really private diary, do they? I'm sure all diarists have half an eye on publication of some sort, yearn to have their thoughts read by others - whether the public at large, or generations yet unborn, or the intimates from whom they supposedly strive to keep the book hidden.) A strange mix of insecurity and megalomania - it's all so "Look at me! My life is so interesting and unusual and special!"

And I've always been sceptical as to whether anyone who spends that much time writing about their life can actually be living one. Maybe Pepys et al could toss off a few thousand words in a mere fifteen minutes or so, and then call it a night, slipping immediately into deep repose. Me, I'm a slow writer. Careful. Thoughtful. And if I try doing too much writing late at night, the turbid brain runs out of control, condemning me to hours of insomnia.

If there's a problem with diaries and the kind of people who keep them, then that problem is 100 times worse with blogging, where the writer dispenses with any pretence of recording his thoughts only for his own benefit, and actively seeks to parade them before the whole world. The blogosphere (and what a portentous, comically ugly word that is!) is, I fear, an orgy of narcissism.

So why am I doing it?

Hmmm. An interesting question. Let me ponder.