Inspiration For More Frequent And Intentional Blogging

Just read a good post entitled, "You should blog even if you have no readers." Just prior to reading that post, I read an article in The Guardian (a newspaper!) entitled, "News is bad for you – and giving up reading it will make you happier." The combined impact of reading these two items is that I feel the desire to write more thoughtful blog posts.

"Even if you have no readers" is an apt phrase in regards to the myDigitechnician.blogspot blog. Some people blog to generate large numbers of viewers who then click on Google ads (or someone else's ads) to generate residual income. Which is not a bad thing at all, just not something I've done (yet). However, as far as I know there are only two or three readers of my blog. My purposes for writing are twofold:

1. To accumulate and present tech-related articles and posts of interest to participants of the weekly NEW NET tech gatherings (which I'm now rethinking, in light of the above 'don't read news' article).
2. To present my thoughts and relevant online links I find about a few topics of high interest to me. An example of this second purpose is the recent series of articles I wrote about the new DHMN makerspace. Past topics include barcamps, GPU parallel computing and civilian aerospace.

The above post which encourages blogging states:

"...I have over 50 unfinished drafts. Some of them are just a few ideas scribbled down arguing with myself. Most of them will never be published, yet I got value out of writing all of them...Blogging has changed how I read other people's writing. In struggling to find the right ways to structure and present my posts, I am much more attuned to what makes a good argument and what makes a bad argument. I am better at seeing holes in other people's reasoning...I'm also more aware of the style of good writers. I mentally take note of the ways good writers phrase their ideas. I'd always enjoyed Paul Graham's writing, but now I really appreciate how he organizes his posts..."

The Guardian article is worthwhile reading for anyone who regularly reads, listens to or watches news media. The article starts out by describing several toxicities in today's world, then goes on to present well-written arguments regarding various aspects of why consuming news is bad for you.

"In the past few decades, the fortunate among us have recognised the hazards of living with an overabundance of food (obesity, diabetes) and have started to change our diets. But most of us do not yet understand that news is to the mind what sugar is to the body. News is easy to digest. The media feeds us small bites of trivial matter, tidbits that don't really concern our lives and don't require thinking. That's why we experience almost no saturation. Unlike reading books and long magazine articles (which require thinking), we can swallow limitless quantities of news flashes, which are bright-coloured candies for the mind. Today, we have reached the same point in relation to information that we faced 20 years ago in regard to food. We are beginning to recognise how toxic news can be..."

The author of the Guardian article has also written a book I'd like to read, "The Art of Thinking Clearly: Better Thinking, Better Decisions" (will check if the Appleton Library has it or will get it).

Two related reasons I blog less frequently than I'd like to are time constraints and my desire to present complete and well-presented posts. This post almost did not get written because of those two reasons. However, the post mentioned above which encourages one to blog accomplished its apparent mission. It prompted me to write this post -- in spite of other things on my to-do list and in spite of me not being able to present a complete and well-presented post.

This post was written to get me back on the path to writing more non-NEW NET posts and to encourage any readers of this blog to check out one or both of the links mentioned above.

To paraphrase Jackson Browne, 'we'll see what (posts) the future brings...'

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