Thinking aloud in the blogosphere

Reading other people’s thinking is sometimes surprising me. And often making me laugh, as well. Only now and then I feel like I could almost have been thinking this or that myself. But I enjoy trying to understand what makes people think what they do – and write it down. After all, thinking is a private action and only when you manage to communicate your thinking one way or another, the thoughts become part of the social communication between tow or more persons. A conversation with only two participants can be very intimate, and may never pass the edge of privacy. But as soon as thoughts are transformed into printed text and published, there a potential audience. Just in case the search engine finds the blog text, or you’re promoting it, perhaps in emails for your friends or on mailing lists. I know I do have a handful of readers and that I’m not really careful with my blog; who are the target readers and for which cause am I blogging? These are questions I’m raising in my thoughts, discussing with myself and occasionally also with some others. What I like best of all about blogs are the feedback you sometimes give to others, or even receive on your own blog. Only a few times I’ve had to delete meaningless or harmful messages thT were posted in my blog disguised as comments. In general, the comments are relevant and very welcome.

Blogging as a phenomenon of making thoughts go public has meant that many people who would perhaps otherwise never have managed to get a voice in public, start thinking of writing for others, instead of just for your dear diary, or the occasional letter among friends of family members.