Generalism

I was disheartened recently. I caught an inciteful entry in a blog by a guy called Robert Cenek, but on subscribing to his RSS feed noted his final entry in July 07 was to be his last. Apparently for him the thrill had gone, and he no longer had the energy to create the original content he had always planned.

He listed 3 different types of Bloggers in his final post, Aggregators (pull together pieces from elsewhere with little personal commentary), Originators (composers of original pieces), and Entertainers (sage-like on personal and professional matters non-evidence based), and tried to be all three wherever possible. A tough call for anyone with a day job.

Regardless of his thoughts however, I think he missed a couple.

Diarists - composers of personal information for personal gain, logging things of interest to look back on in the future. If other people read it and find it interesting, then purely an added bonus.

Writers - a blogging compatriot once said that he continued to write his blog to “keep up his writing chops”. These bloggers write because they want to, they enjoy it, it keeps their writing skills honed, and maybe somebody somewhere will appreciate some of the content.

I fall squarely into these two categories (and maybe “Entertainer” on a good day with lots of coffee). The thrill will indeed go if the primary reason for blogging is outside the four walls of the writer. If I get a comment, I shall fall off my chair, but I blog for me, for fun, for a diary, and for writing practice (and boy do I need writing practice!). And for me, these reasons are enough.

So Robert, if you do come back, just chill. We enjoy your blog. It doesn’t have to be long, inciteful, entertaining, original. I’m sure we’ll continue to read it and enjoy it regardless.

Okay, I’m no scientist, but when someone turns round and says that there’s now real evidence that terran life began in space, I just hold my head in my hands and sigh. Oh, and wonder what these guys are being paid. I bet it’s more than me.

Please please please get out of your dark windowless labs and look up into the clear sky on the odd occasion. You’ll notice we are _in_ space! We are _made out_ of spacestuff! Everything is bits of space and from space and of space!!!

I’m now waiting for the sure-to-follow announcement that they are fairly certain that there’s real evidence that the planet Earth was in fact formed IN SPACE!!! Oh the BEDLAM!!!!

And relax…