Benefits of Blogging
Posted on 02. Mar, 2009 by Laura-Jane - Whimfield in Inspirations, Personal
1. You meet wonderful people. Sometimes you only ever know them in the digital world, and that’s OK. Sometimes, you meet in person, and it’s exciting!
2. You can look back on your life and say, “Wow, I did that?” Or, “What was I thinking??” Or “Oh my, I’d forgotten about that!”
3. You meet random people on the street who say, “Excuse me, aren’t you, um, Whimfield?”
4. If you have children, you can pass on your blog as your eternal legacy. (Never delete any blog posts. Never!)
5. Blogging can inspire you to get out and do things. I swear, if I didn’t blog, I’d just stay home and drink lemonade. But I need something to write about, so sometimes I do more than just drink lemonade.
6. Blogging forces you to reflect on your life as a whole.
7. Blogging is fun, even though sometimes it feels like a chore. Especially when you set a silly schedule like inspiration Mondays!
8. Blogging is addictive. I started in year 2001 and I can’t stop. My first blog was hot pink. This is what it looked like. (I am serious. This is the real thing.)
9. You know that you love blogging when you go back and laugh at your own jokes that you wrote five years ago. There is nothing more pleasureful than that.
Why aren’t you blogging, pray tell? Or if you are, where are you blogging (and why)? Favourite blogs? Is there a difference between blogging and journaling? Are bloggers narcissists?
Because I was getting all nostalgic, I was reviewing my old blog, and I found this. I enjoyed re-reading it, so here it is:
Wednesday, Aug. 25, 2004 (1:43 a.m.)
Now, I don’t particularly keep track of such things, but, for quite some time now, I have been aware that my 500th entry has been fast approaching. Now that it is finally here, I’m not quite sure what to do with myself.
Perhaps I shall simply conduct a fake interview:
Interviewer: Laura-Jane, thank you so much for inviting me to meet with you today, inside your private luxury skull. It’s so roomy and airy here–very rococo, yet avant garde. Fantastic.
Laura-Jane: Why, thank you, Interviewer.
Interviewer: Let’s get started, shall we?
Laura-Jane: Certainly. [Laughs] [Editor's Note: Laura-Jane apparently laughs nervously during every awkward pause imaginable--a fact which she candidly confided in last month's "Giant Forehead Pimples" edition of The Nervous Political Science Majors Who Cannot Speak in Public Weekly.]
Interviewer: Okay Laura-Jane. Tell me a little about how you first got started in The Industry.
Laura-Jane: Well, Interviewer, it’s just your average story really… In 2001, I began maintaining my own webpage (http://laura-jane.n3.net), which, for some reason, I insisted on displaying in a disturbingly vibrant pink, but that is beyond the point.
Eventually, I somehow found the need to begin rambling on about myself, and the rest is, well, you know, history.
Interviewer: Fascinating. At the time, did you have grandiose aspirations of one day reaching your 500th entry?
Laura-Jane: Not at all, Interviewer. What the point of all of this is, I am still not entirely certain. Initially, I imagine that writing here was merely a substitute for sharing my inane thoughts and stories with friends, because, well, I didn’t have any friends to share them with. At the time, I most definitely wrote just for myself. Bear in mind, that for the first year or two, the number of people who actually found themselves at my page was terribly small; although, at the time, I didn’t particularly mind that no one was the least bit interested. (Looking back, I cannot blame them!)
Similarly, as my relationship with Cameron was beginning to really play a prominent role in my life, I wanted to ensure that I remembered what it had been like as I was progressing through it. Growing up, I have been frustrated by my own memories, in that the edges blur together and nothing can ever be remembered as it truly was. Every moment, we are thinking, wondering, worrying! And yet, our inner-most thoughts from ten years ago…can you remember yours? Thus, I do my best to try to circumvent my own inadequacy, using the one option with which I am familiar.
Furthermore [Editor's Note: Apparently, Laura-Jane uses 'furthermore' in everyday conversations. Sadly, we here at The Industry have discovered that this is actually true. She particularly uses this term when making well-heeled points during arguments.], I have a tendency to race through my life without stopping to think or ponder what it is that I am doing, how fast the time is flying, or the decisions that I am making. Writing entries here, however monotonous they might seem, prompts me to sit and reflect on where my life has led–and is now leading.
Blogging has now become a large part of who I am. Whether I will be around for a 600th, I am not at all certain. A 1000th? Yikes! At this stage, there is no end in sight. I have wondered what I would do should
Cameron and I cease to be together–print out a copy for myself, a copy for him, and delete the rest, I should think. Logically, I suppose I would start a new blog, but who knows. (And without Cam’s computer expertise? Egads!) Although, if I didn’t write, I am not sure what I would do with myself.
Interviewer: Intriguing, Laura-Jane… Long-winded–yet intriguing. And what do you think about any onlookers who happen upon your page?
Laura-Jane: Well, I adore and cherish them.
You might be aware, Interviewer, that outside of The Industry, I am inept. I do not do well with friends, nor do they seem to do well with me.
No one speaks to me.
Gets my jokes.
Reaches out.
Wonders what I think.
But here, it is different. Because people do.
The fact that I wouldn’t recognize the majority of them if we sat next to one another on a bus is wholly secondary. And the one’s I would–and do–recognize, I consider the truest of friends.
Interviewer: Do you really believe that? What would you say to someone who disagreed about the nature of ‘online’ friendships?
Laura-Jane: Perhaps they are right, but what does it matter? In myself I recognize a need for social interaction, acceptance and friendship, and I am absolutely fulfilled by what goes on here. Beyond that, who is to say?
Interviewer: How quaint.
Laura-Jane: Indeed.
Interviewer: Readers of The Industry–available now at your local newstand for a one-time, introductory price!–want to know, how many times per day do you check your comments/guestbook/sitemeter/notes?
Laura-Jane: [Clears throat] Orange juice, anyone?
Interviewer: Now, Laura-Jane…
Laura-Jane: Um, I’m not entirely sure why you wanted to interview me in the first place, because this whole decision, I am beginning to realize, was a terrible, horrible idea.
Out, Damn Interviewer!
Interviewer stands up. Clutches her purse. Exits brain left.
Kim
Mar 3rd, 2009
Hi Laura-Jane,
Keep on blogging! You’re so right that the blog captures all our memories AND emotions, some good, some not so good. but all integral to who we are at that time.
However, I AM sick of describing the WINTER here in PEI!
Have a great day!
Cuidhil Meaban
Mar 3rd, 2009
Laura-Jane What an enjoyable posting! Inspirational too!
I finally added something to mine as a result. Keep up with
the fun … & the updates on the ‘back-to-the-landers’.
Cuidhil Meaban {The Wheel Brat}
Meg
Mar 3rd, 2009
Laura-Jane, on our next trip to PEI, we are hoping to meet you and see Whimfield! Love the book, by the way! Makes me dream even more about living on PEI! :)
Michelle
Mar 3rd, 2009
Laura-Jane.
Ahaha! Thank you, Funny One.
warren
Mar 3rd, 2009
I blog for many of the reasons you listed…it sort of started as a way for me to remember when blackberries come into season here in WV…I can just consult my blog. It has grown to a lot more though and I think it is at least partly due to my own narcissism. As you mentioned, my favorite unexpected benefit of blogging is that I do get out more than I otherwise would have and I take tons of pictures now.
Hmmm….favorite blog…mine, yours, children in the corn, Chiot’s run, The Inadvertent Farmer…there are tons more but those are some good ones!
Jean
Mar 4th, 2009
Laura Jane, if reading about and watching videos of making a rug were enough to make me an expert, I’d be an expert. I seem frozen in space,unable to move on. I want to know every eentsy teensy speck of information before I start. So, now that I’m immobile, I’ll go press my newly washed fabric, tear it into strips, make the end slits, chain a few together and give it a go. I’ll tell you another time how it works. If you don’t hear from me again I’ve truly gone into a catatonic state completely unable to move on with this rug that I’ve planned for weeks now.
Jean
Mar 4th, 2009
wow, you must be way way east of me as its only 8:49 here although your blog attached 12:48 to my first message.
Amanda
Mar 4th, 2009
I just started a blog a couple days ago at the urging of a couple friends and who else? My mom! Here is my blogging site http://blog.horizonfarm.ca/
I’m just stumbling around in it. So I’ll tell you what I enjoy about blogging in a few months.
Cheers
Gary Gray
Mar 4th, 2009
Hi L-J
Wow something happened to the format of your Whimfield blog. I don’t really like it as well as the old format.
I could call this post interesting but I feel that would be an understatement. Sometimes you really frighten me. lol
enuf said about that.
The kids did well curling on Monday. Both rinks took the win Provincial Champs. (boys and girls)
I took some videos with the flip video cam and uploaded two of them to my You Tube account. (cheering and clapping)
http://www.youtube.com/my_videos
The Tea Trolley lady emailed me with interest in a marketing plan. (imagine)
Got nothing ready for Tom yet. (rats)
My blogs are not getting updated and research/training are getting behind. (bummer)
I am invited to go to Nova Scotia this weekend. (not Halifax)
I may really have to rethink my time
management or add a few more hours to each day. (happy dance, daylight saving time is coming)
I think this is anything BUT being narcissistic
Can anyone talk me down on this, anyone? (no more chocolate for you)
Smiles :o)
Gary
Nicole
Mar 4th, 2009
Blogs are a truly wonderful thing — most of the time! I’ve “met” — albeit virtually — people from all over the world. Getting a window into their lives and opening one for them into mine has been fun and fascinating.
christy
Mar 5th, 2009
i think it is sooooo cool you started a blog in 2001!!! i didnt even know what a blog was until 2008. LOL.
Laura-Jane - Whimfield
Mar 6th, 2009
@Kim – Me too. I’m supposed to write about the outdoors on Thursdays, and I’m all, “Um, more snow? People must be sick of reading about that now!”
@Cuidhil Meaban – Glad to have inspired a post! You two are busy gypsies. Love the moccasins in your post. I’ve never had any but I really should get some, because they do look so cozy.
@Meg – Glad you received it safely. :)
@Michelle – My pleasure! Thanks for reading!
@Warren – Yes, I totally agree about using it to check back on. For example, this year we were wondering when the snow was going to start melting, and we just went back through our posts to see that. Very handy!
@Jean – Yes, the rag rugs are popular. We are working on a new rag rug website actually, but it’s top secret until it’s complete. Yes, you must be on Pacific time!
@Amanda – Great blog! Congratulations on taking your first step on a long and wonderful journey. :) Yes, it starts with your mom, and then it will grow, grow, grow, especially if you take the time to network with other bloggers, too. That’s a big part of the fun of it, I think.
@GG – Thanks for the update. The link to the YouTube videos isn’t working for me. Perhaps you can post the full link to each for us? Yes, when you figure out how to squeeze more hours out of the day, please tell us about it. :P
@Nicole – Well said, I agree completely.
@Christy – It’s because I had a very very very nerdy computer boyfriend. :) Actually, I remember the first time I READ A BLOG and it was a very good one just about one woman’s simple, everyday life (can’t remember how to find it now though). After reading it, I thought, I HAVE TO DO THIS TOO. And I did.
Naomi
Mar 12th, 2009
Isn’t that the same pink as your old room? You’ve always had great taste in colour! I’m glad that you blog….it makes me feel like you aren’t so far away after all….
Glennnnnnn
May 16th, 2011
Whimfield Gang,
When investigating what typeO log splitter I should buy, last night I ran across your uTube vids on your experience with homesick electron powered log splitters, what a pleasant diversion, thank you both.
I will dig into your blog more as time permits since seems we are mental neighbors in a few ways (I too love my tractor n rural home along with feeling blogging is just a good form of modern/electron powered scrap book).
Aloha, Glennnnnnnn
PS Yes, I know Whimfield is jsut your pen name.