I write because it's fun. But maybe that's not a serious enough answer. I write first and foremost for myself: for the discipline of it, and for the opportunity it gives me to test the logic and defensibility of my ideas. I also write because I enjoy the competition: the evoking of a response-- any kind of response--from strangers who may or may not be kindred spirits. And that's about it.

I suppose I write to communicate - with others, of course, but more often than not with myself. Never knowing where the words will lead me, always surprised by where I land. The release it gives me is simultaneously soothing and frustrating; a balm to my soul and a thorn in my side. Yet, when it feels completely finished ... when I have poured myself onto the page and the color has changed, I know I'm through. For that moment in time I am sated.

Knowing my words are read, receiving thoughts that were created by them, is a fascinating experience. Amazing, thrilling, exciting and humbling. The funny thing is that I feel exactly the same way if the only eyes that string the letters into words are my own.

Well done, Matt. Very good to see you.

A Spur of the Moment Answer

I love words
The way they wrap around ideas tight
Or jump the page into the cosmic thread
Or order lunch or mourn the dead
Or break my heart, or blow my mind
I never thought I’d write a line
But words lay down an inner tune
That even God cannot subsume

Where were you when we were talking about words the other day?

http://tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com/talk/blogs/tom_wright/2009/05/i-text-therefore-im.php

My current reasons for writing are very much like bluebell's. I felt pulled along by events, starting about the time before we went into Iraq. And continuing on. I've always loved the act of writing, but never really wrote with as much enjoyment before the web. Maybe the immediacy of being able to connect, the fact that writing is really our only connection between each other. And the sense that my voice, however singular, is a way to stand up against the tyranny we've experienced. So it's a protest as much as anything. Often, I don't want to write at all. Or I just want to go away and fuhgedaboudit. But something impels me to write. Demands it. I usually try to write only at that inner bidding. And I often am not quite sure what's going to come until it's out there on paper. Unlike Ramona, I don't love the editing. I do it. But it's not a joy. Some blogs are pure fun. But even the fun ones, I think, are part of a larger message. I find, that over time, there's a theme emerging in what I've written. I wish I knew why I wrote. But I feel I'm part of something larger than myself. Something that reaches out beyond our country, in an effort to see how our problems affect others and how our solutions must take into account everyone. Not just us. But everyone. We can't make laws for the world of course. But we can make laws "in view" of the world. So I'm writing for something like that.

So all that said, what brings you here every day, spending the time to make an argument or a point to strangers?

1. The frequently futile desire to change people's minds.

2. A sense of obligation that I should help spread arguments I think are good ones, even among people who are already my allies on some important topic, so that those arguments will make work their way out into the broader public discourse and - conceivably at least - have some effect.

3. The need to blow off steam.

My very first Blog post (not on any of the Blogs I currently write and written on Friday, April 15, 2005, 2:21 PM - the date I started writing a Blog):

------------

"bush, AOL and Censorship

For over 10 years I have used AOL as an ISP or as my favorite place to post messages on their boards. I remember paying a nickel per minute for access in the early days. Did I ever run up some bills back then! Sadly, today was the last day that my former screen name "m16eib" posted on AOL. Why, you ask?

Well, it all started several months ago when AOL implemented a policy of deleting messages on boards that it deemed as disruptive to the boards. AOL has changed it's policy from simply deleting offensive posts (IE: racist posts, name calling, swearing, and other "Terms Of Service" (TOS) violations) to a policy of deleting any posts it wants to.

Post an anti-bush news story - DELETED.

Post your thoughts about the GOP - DELETED.

Post anything that challenged one's mind to think - DELETED.

The new position of the AOL "Community Action Team" (CAT) is constantly being challenged by the AOL clients that are MAD AS HECK from post deletions and/or getting kicked off of AOL for expressing their opinions and trying to enjoy freedom of speech.

Today I suffered that fate for the last time.

This censorship by Corporate America against any and all views that are against them and the bush administration that supports them through billion dollar Corporate Welfare is a sad statement on American society and politics in particular. I will still keep in contact with my buddies on AOL, but I will no longer attempt to feed the AOL beast that bites my hand.

The people on all sides of the issues on AOL message boards are all aghast at the censorship that is taking place. There are moderates from the left and right that are suffering this fate. The only faction that seems to enjoy immunity from the post deletions and being kicked off of AOL are the hard right wing supporters of failed bush policies. Why is that? I wonder?

This will be a topic that I will return to occasionally, but it will not be the only topic I will post on. It is just the one that I am most pissed about right now. For the time being I will stick to less volatile issues, like politics... lol

Life sucks... Too bad it doesn't swallow!"

------------

From the day bush announced he wanted to invade Iraq - what I surmised to be an illegal invasion at the time - until the time I wrote that post I had been involved in a war of words with many neoconservative idiots which resulted in left leaning and anti-war voices getting silenced from the discussions, getting booted from AOL, one by one by AOL and its appointed right wing monitors.

If I were doing this for fun? I would be writing about hockey, sex or gardening... Things that I actually enjoy.