Ian pretty much sums up my feelings on punditry. So much of this blogging shit is a shell game. Comments on comments on comments, all under the cover that "the blogosphere is all about the conversation."

When it's actually about the conversation it's brilliant, revolutionary and when the history is written, Gutenberg won't have shit on the internet. But too often it's not really a conversation, it's 9000 people in a room shouting "me too!" just to be heard.

The best blogs are written by people who have gone out and done something. It's who they were before they sat down to write that makes their writing great. It's their perspective and experience that we all benefit from.

This isn't to say that everyone shouldn't have a blog. I'm probably too optimistic in who should write. And since it literally costs nothing to start a blog, there's no risk in trying. But writing isn't sitting down and hammering out what you think someone else would say. It's not parroting the opinions of other people, no matter how accomplished they happen to be. That's college. Save it for your professors.

This space should be more authentic. It's your life as original research, your life as performance art, your life as narrative non-fiction. This is the one place you can be truly be free. Where you can scream anonymously into the void just to see what resonates back.

Don't lose that freedom trying to pass off some polished image of yourself. Every other part of your life is going to be constrained by the expectations of others. Make this a place where you can be free of those expectations, even if it's only for twenty minutes a day.

Posted by Ben Corman at 8:55 AM

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