A friend asked me this question out of sheer curiosity. It’s a valid question for 2021 when more people consume video and graphical content than text. Words aren’t as exciting as motion animation anyway.
I don’t have to get offended by a question like that because it’s an opportunity to clarify why I do what I do. And each time someone asks me that question, they make me wonder why, and my response usually covers the following aspects:
- Writing a blog is a great way to learn about yourself and the topic that you write about often. They say, “when one teaches, two learn — the teacher and the student.” And writing helps me simplify what I know to be able to teach it further. Of course, I’m far from a perfect teacher, but that too is something that I’m learning, and over a few years, I’ll get where I want to be as a teacher that primarily communicates via the written word.
- Showing up consistently helps me produce a body of work for the generations to come. Artists don’t create, hoping their work will be noticed today but for tomorrow or the next month, the following year, the next decade, and the next generation. I hope my work reaches someone in despair and helps them find that spark of joy or inspiration years after I’ve written a post. (Sure, my legacy depends on keeping my family keeps up with the payments for website hosting and domain renewal once I’m gone.)
- It’s the best way to document your evolution as a human being. I’ve always found documentaries fascinating. They go through different phases of planning, creating, waiting, following up, risking, taking chances, rejections the artists (the primary writer, director, and the crew mostly) to produce something bold, ugly, and trustworthy. I find life precisely like that, except that most people won’t bother to document it. They’re okay with sharing their thoughts on Twitter or Facebook but could care less to record it somewhere, so they’re able to come back years later and revel on how far they’ve come as human beings.
Another suggestion that often comes up is to position my blog to serve as a platform to demonstrate my professional expertise. And to keep my “personal life” out of it. But who creates those rules? Why can’t a professional blog be “human” at times? I chose to have just one blog instead of a professional and a personal one because I believe that the personal is professional. It always has been and always will.
So, the whole point of blogging in 2021 depends on how much you value learning, creating a body of work, and documenting your life’s journey. For me, that’s a priority.