Blogging as an alternative to IM’ing…

January 29th, 2008

When I’m using a chat-environment, like AIM or MSN, I’m probably a bit overwhelming for my friends. I type fast, and find myself sometimes hacking in three and four fairly lengthy responses to every one of theirs. Ann is pretty good at keeping up, because she types and thinks even faster than I do, but others seem to spend more time actually working at their jobs when at work. 🙂

Anyway, it’s more satisfying in its way to write these open audience notes. It lets me reflect on and record some of the stray thoughts that flit across one’s mind in a way where they don’t get lost in conversation. Like, in the car this morning I was not listening to the radio, which blanks out almost all original thought, and I remembered that yesterday I heard on BBC World Service a news-reader announcing that John Edwards had endorsed Obama for President, which was shocking.

The announcer said, clear as a bell, “Edwards has endorsed Barak Obama for the Democratic candidacy….”    Except, the actual news was that Edward Kennedy had done so. So the thought came and went that this was a destructive thing for the  Edwards campaign. Was it an honest mistake, or a world conspiracy to cripple the Edwards candidacy, involving not just the multi-nationals, but also BBC News!?

And I’d mentioned it all to Ann via chat yesterday, and then forgot about it. But today, aha, I now have time to reflect on it, and retell the story in a way that might reach others (all three or four of you).

And there it is:  the unique value of blogging a journal: which is the ability to capture original thoughts that might otherwise get lost, and to share wild, and not so wild conspiracy theories with a potentially global audience.

Ta da!