Blogging a Snap Shot in Time

I sit in my office the lights are turned off. The only the light is coming from my 24 inch monitor and a window with a partially closed blind, which illuminates the room enough for me to see the keyboard. As I type this it is relatively quiet with only a low humming noise coming from a ceiling paddle fan spinning at a medium speed. The force is creating a lite breeze that gently touches my face.  As I sip a freshly brewed cup of coffee the aroma puts a smile of satisfaction on my face, and the caffeine increases my awareness and focus.  I sit and ponder what blogging means to me, I believe blogging is a snapshot in time.  Sure people our pulled into technology, and want easy access to news or to track friends and family events as they are happening. Maybe I am nostalgic, but I would like to think people also enjoy looking back at past events and seeing how things have changed over the years. When you think about it “Blogging is a Snap shot in time”.  A chronological journal of events that someone has lived and witnessed. You could have philosophical debates on what blogging means to you, and it may hold a totally different meaning then what I believe. So here’s your warning; your mileage may vary on this topic.

Blogs have become an integral part of online culture, it’s only in the past ten years that they’ve really taken off, and become an important part of the online landscape.  I would estimate everyone that is online reads blogs of some type such as; news, hobbies, entertainment or sports. The word blog is a play on the words Weblog. Blogging is the act of writing or updating events in a weblog. While the term “blog” was not coined until the late 1990s, the history of blogging starts with several digital precursors to it. Before “blogging” became popular, digital communities took many forms, including Usenet, commercial online services such as GEnie, BiX and the early CompuServe. From 1994–2001 the modern blog evolved from online diaries, where people would keep a running account of their personal lives. Most such writers called themselves diarists, journalists or journalers. After a slow start, blogging rapidly gained in popularity being further popularized by the arrival of the first hosted blog tools. 2001–present blogging started to become more identified as popular media of communications.  WordPress was launched in 2003, and in the same year AdSense advertising platform started, which was the first ad network to match ads to the content on a blog. AdSense also made it possible for bloggers without huge platforms to start making money from when they first started blogging (though payments to low-traffic blogs weren’t very large. Once bloggers started making money from their blogs, the number of Meta blogs skyrocketed. A number of mainstream media sites started their own blogs during the mid to late 2000s, but with the advent of social media and social networking in the past five years, blogs have become only one portion of an individual’s online identity.

So why have I waited so long to start blogging? The answer is really based on a simple formula I use;  “time in a day; versus priority of tasks” for many years leading up to now I have always considered blogging at lower priority, which never left me time to blog. The time for blogging went up against my work schedule, which takes up 10 to 12 hours a day. Up to this point I have not written much for pleasure or the public, only technical and management related documents for work.  I have always felt a passion for writing going back to my college days when I completed a creative writing class. Over the years I have contemplated writing a couple of different books. I have started basic outlines, but I have never dedicated enough time to complete more than ten percent for each one. Once again bitten by the time equation (time in day Vs priority of a task). I have always put pleasure writing on the back burning. At this point I don’t plan on finishing any of the books I started until I retire, and have more dedicated time for properly writing a good book.

I don’t have much of a background blogging. So far the closest I have come to blogging is a sport forum on Rivals, where I have submitted hundreds of posts. I enjoyed having the opportunity to share an observation or make point on a subject, which many times creates friendly banter among other sports fans.  I also post on Facebook but, I am not a Facebook junkie spending every hour posting and reading other posts. My average status posts for Facebook would be about two or three times a week. In summary I am sure which direction or how often I will be posting blogs. I will try to follow the quote by Ralph Waldo Emerson “life is a journey not a destination” my twist on this is; it’s not about the destination it’s the journey that takes place to reach the destination.  I will try to find the time to continue to post as blogging doesn’t have to be long or drawn out process. A good example for this is the Trail Journals that hiker’s post, while tracking their journey on a hiking trail, which normally just recaps what happened for the day or their thoughts on the journey. Here is to enjoying and sharing the journey as it unfolds. I hope you enjoy my Snap shots in time.  As daylight continues to burn it is time for me to finish other tasks.

May this find you well and happy, God Bless

May 17, 2015

References:

Wikipedia “History of blogging” (May, 16, 2015).