Why I blog. Because. by Stan Faryna

I’ve enjoyed how other bloggers have answered this important question: why do I blog?

@TheJackB recently wrote a soul-searching blog post about why he blogs. It’s a good blog post. If you haven’t read it, I recommend it.

▶ http://www.thejackb.com/2011/05/09/why-do-i-blog

@janetcallaway also wrote an amazingly kind blog post about community building bloggers. Janet tells us about the top bloggers she has met as a blogger. I also recommend her post.

▶ http://bit.ly/mKwyyu

@marcus_baker recently wrote an illuminating blog post on Oprah, blogging, and your calling. The dude’s reply to my comment (to his post) was beautiful.

▶ http://bit.ly/mJY2Ot

I blog for many reasons. Why do you blog?

I could write a list a page long. Or three. But here’s my short list. It doesn’t make for a good read, but still I have to write it on the wall. Because.

1. To discover, recollect, and define myself, my true self, my soul, my history, who I am today, and my future. And, yes, my destiny!
2. To connect, participate, and, thereby, discover the world from the comfort of my favorite armchair and that nearby mug of latte or tea – people, places, ideas, hope, and things.
3. To share deeply of myself, my thoughts, and my emotions with the world, to encourage others and unleash potential, and to lift them up or set them straight.
4. To build thriving, sharing, and authentic relationships and interaction between myself and an other, between others, and between the many and the many.
5. To build communities where difference, prejudice and good will contribute to discovery, friendship and understanding – but not to the extent that evil goes unpunished. Or sins unrepented. Or unforgiven.
6. To collaborate with others in the building of a world of we – a better place for you and me. For us.
7. To mentor; to be a watchman; to be a light unto the world and the salt of the earth.

I write for me. I write for you. I write for us. I don’t always do it well. Nor does the outcome always work out. Actually, outcomes are highly unpredictable. For everything. That’s how God (or the Universe) wants it to be. But, perhaps also, because I am a poor blogger. In other words, a poor writer.

Actually, I’ve been writing online like this since 1989. My first “blog” went up in 2002. And, yet, I still don’t really consider myself a blogger. I’m still trying to get used to the tag. It’s like a new pair of shoes. Even hand-tailored, bespoke shoes need to be broken in. Even if they’ve been in your closet since forever.

Birkenstocks too!

Perhaps, I am reluctant to define myself as a blogger because it’s not what I do for my living. Honestly, I’ve never thought to monetize it. But, perhaps, the offer was never sweet enough to consider making it a job.

For the last 15+ years, I make my living doing corporate communications, design, interactive design, online advertising and marketing, online strategy, and technology. They are all related. Put another way, there’s no way to wrap your mind around the intertubes without these references. An interdisciplinary mind is critical to understand the discontinuities, opportunities, and expectations.

I’ve founded start-ups, designed killer apps, and, bottom line, supported the visions, ambitions and successes of change leaders, mavericks and a few important institutions.

There have been good times. Very good. And bad times. So bad I have pressed my face upon the earth (literally) and asked for God’s mercy and help. But that’s another blog post.

Am I still reluctant to admit to being a blogger? Yes. Because I don’t want to mislead my readers – especially young bloggers. You may or may not get insight on blogging from me. Perhaps by example. But there are better examples than myself. This native comment platform, for example, sucks. It doesn’t help me build a community around my own blog.

I’m at the 10k mark in monthly reads – a milestone to which many bloggers aspire. And it took me forever to get here – nine years!? Fortunately, the milestone wasn’t on the list of things to do. So I didn’t get here by running up that hill. Or running a race. And I don’t intend to start running to the next milestone either – be that 100k or one million.

Such terrible feats and triumphs shall always truly belong to the ambitious, the backstabbers, the forked tongue, the goat footed, and the liars.

Like in real life, I walk the walk.

Like a bear.

Because I stop to scratch my back on a friendly tree. Because I stop to drink from a cold mountain spring. Or roar from the mountain top while God’s thunder claps and lightning flashes.

Because I smell the flowers. Put my nose deep into the petals and pistols and suck the marrow out of life.

Am I crazy? Or are you? Can we both get crazy in our own peculiar way and that will be ok?

Stan Faryna
1 June 2011
Bucharest, Romania

If you’d like to connect with me, follow @Faryna and tweet me up on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/faryna

Or join me in my adventure and trials as I attempt to write my first novel.

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About Stan Faryna

Mr. Faryna is the founder and co-founder of several technology, design and communication companies in the United States and Europe including Faryna & Associates, Inc., Halo Interactive, and others.

Stan Faryna served as a Global Voices author and translator. Global Voices is a non-profit global citizens’ media project founded at Harvard Law School’s Berkman Center for Internet and Society, a research think-tank focused on the Internet’s impact on society.

His political, scholarly, social and technical opinions have appeared in The Chicago Defender, Jurnalul National, The Washington Times, Sagar, Saptamana Financiara, Social Justice Review, and other publications.

Mr. Faryna also served as editor-in-chief of Black and Right (Praeger Press, 1996), a landmark collection of socio-political essays by important American thinkers including U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas.

Copyright

Copyright 1996 to 2012 by Stan Faryna.

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