For the first time in the history of this site, we are featuring a guest writer. As part of the first BlogSwap I am priveleged to have Rebecca doing some writing today.
What’s Up With the Blogging Fixation, Anyway?
The subject for this weeks Blog Swap is “How Blogging Has Impacted My Life,” and I suppose if I’m going to write about what sort of impact blogging has had on me, I ought to explain first why I started blogging. I started blogging because I like to write, and I like to discuss things. I have one of those minds that is constantly mulling things over–theological things in particular–that very few people in the real world want to discuss with me.
For a few years, I got my daily writing and discussing fix on various discussion boards, mostly discussing theology. If you’ve ever frequented theology discussion boards, you’ve probably noticed that they mostly consist of the same discussions done over and over again. The people discussing might change, but the subjects discussed and the arguments presented stay more or less the same, day after day, month after month, year after year: election vs. free will, the KJV vs. all the other versions, creation in 6-24 hour days vs. a longer time period. Once in a while a new and fresh subject would be introduced, but those new and fresh discussions, along with many of the non-confrontational ones, didn’t often get much response. I longed for someplace to write about and discuss things other than those oft-repeated subjects, and when I was introduced to blogging, right away it seemed like something I’d like doing, simply because I could discuss and write about the things I wanted, and never have to touch the subjects I’d grown weary of ever again unless I really wanted to.
Blogging has done that for me. I’m the boss of the subjects. I write about what I’m interested in at the moment, whatever I’m stewing over at the time. So far, I’ve never grown weary of blogging, and I have many more ideas of things I want to write about.
That’s how blogging has worked for me; now on to how it’s effected me. For one thing, it’s put a new sort of discipline in my writing and thinking. I can’t be lazy, because I know there are people checking my blog every day, looking to see if there is anything new, and that puts a little pressure on me to put up something new fairly often. It’s a like being in school, with the constant schedule of assignments that force a disciplined sort of study–and that’s a good thing–but the parameters of the assignments are all made up by me, so I don’t have to do any assignment I’m not interested in–and that’s a good thing, too.
That leads me to the second effect blogging has had one me. Since I need a constant flow of subjects to write on, I look at everything just a bit differently than I did before. I am always thinking, “Could I blog about that? How could I explain that to someone else? How could I approach that subject in a fresh way?” I suppose that sounds as if it might take the fun out of life, but not for me! It’s almost as if I have a new set of eyes that I’m seeing the world through. What was once mundane and everyday becomes new and unique when I look at it through the eyes of a potential reader of my blog. The things that through over familiarity had become black and white and shades of grey are once again multihued when examined as a possible blogging subject.
Then, of course, through my own blogging, I’ve become familiar with a few other bloggers and their blogs. I get to look at the world through their eyes, too, to see things the way they see them, and see the things they are interested in. The world of blogging is full of people from various backgrounds and various talents and various viewpoints, and each blog is a little piece of it’s owner, there for us to try to understand, to try to see things as they see them. In real life, it’s the rare person who will want to discuss these deep and personal sorts of things much, but bloggers write them in their blogs, and when I read their blog, I am privileged to be one of the ones they share these things with.
And so I come to another way blogging has changed things for me: I now want to get up in the morning. I have reasons to have a hard time facing the day ahead, but I don’t dread the new day any longer, because I can’t wait to take a quick peek with my morning coffee at who has been reading my blog while I was sleeping (and how many of them there were), and what new things my blogging friends have to say for themselves.
The one drawback for me–at least the one drawback that I can think of as I write this–(besides, of course, the obvious drawback that blogging could take over my life if I let it) has been that I sometimes find it more difficult to just commune with God alone for no other reason than that I love Him and want to know Him better. Since faith and theology are frequent subjects on my blog, I find that I have begun using my theological discussion lens too often even in my simple private times of Bible reading and prayer. Sometimes I am not reading so much to see how I need to change, or what God has done for me, but to see what new insight I can share in my blog.
There you have it–how blogging has changed my life, or at least part of how it has changed it. Mostly for the better, but with at least one pitfall I need to watch out for. All in all, it’s been a good thing in my life, a positive force. And it’s certainly been something I love doing.
My name: Rebecca
My Weblog: Rebecca Writes
URL of Blog: http://everydaymusings.blogspot.com
Description of my site: Rebecca Writes is a place for Rebecca to write whatever it is she’s thinking about. The most frequent topics are those dealing with matters of faith and theology and life in Canada’s Yukon territory, which is way up there at the top of your map nestled right beside the state of Alaska.
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