to Blog or Not To blog ?

I was reading my old blog when i found this interesting artikel wrote by Iqbal widastomo on The Jakarta Post about reason why people write blog. I my self found this article very interesting and reasonable enough to be shared with others.

he wrotes:"Call me old-fashioned, if you will, but I still like to pick up a newspaper and read the news, the views and any reports on today's world, the attraction of the internet is there, for sure, but it's just not the same as picking u a broadsheet-even a tabloid.

The internet is a fabulous and powerfull tool and looing-on can bring us the world.But I am not yet entirely convinced the newish addition to what the internet provides-blogginging for me.

In recent years, the phenomenon of blogging has become outlandishly popular.So many people are blogging these days, I almost feel guilty I've not yet joined the party.

There are all kinds of bloggers out ther today-and indonesia offers its fair share.We are told blogs are a good addition to democracy - afterall, anyone is free to blog, but whether this is necessarily a good thing, I am not sure.

Not long ago afriend showed me abook that asks what is the value of the internet- or its contribution to culture.It poses the question : are blogs of any benefit to the world and its culture.

the outhor recognizes bloggers are a art of our culture, but criticizes the cult they belong to.It suggests blogging is "the cult of amateur" and the domain of the "wanna-be" writer. It argues "bloggers are not real writers" who know the pain that can be a draft, the agony of submissions-to-editors, the awfullnes of rejections or the final, sweet realization of publication.

bloggers, this book says, are set aside as inferior.the cannit and do not measure up to "real writers", including book authors and newspaper journalists.It says bloggers are " lacking in integrity and trustworthiness".

these are harsh words indeed- and leave me thingking perhaps I do not want or need to be a blogger after all.Especially if I am to be so harshly criticized, or categorized as irrelevant.

but a bloggers have a right, as we all do, to their opinions and the oppoturnity to express their thoughts as they see fit.They can prove a valuable form of independent communication.

bloggers in Iraq, for example, have revealed un comfortable truths about their wartorn country bloggers can and do have independent and original voices in this world tainted by political spin, one-sided views and propaganda.

but something still bothers me about being a blogger in away, it seems a strange passtime.

Some blogs I have experienced read as a person privat and personal journal of a diary left open for unknown passerby.

this may be cathartic in practice, but it nonetheless seems odd.

other blogs, too, read like the wild rantings of people that probably nobody listens to anyway.there too many self-important bloggers telling us they are wise and popular.

And the bloggers who think just a little bit amusing.Verging on sad.

For example, one jakartan blogger I have read likes to apologize to his readers onlide if he has failed them.

I sometimes wonder and think I may be his only reader.but the oppoturnity to remark on a blog's content is rarely, if ever, taken.

this then leads me to wonder whether blogger are int-truth just sad and lonely people nobody cares about of listen to.

Are they just lost souls who believe friendship, nay, intimacy can be found within a flickering computer screen ?

If this is true for most bloggers then I'm quite sure I don't want to be one.

On the other hand, as socrates variable translation reads: the unexamined life is not worth living.and blogging allows all this and more.

for now, though, I think My own introspection shall remain largely private, in my journals and diaries.

While in some ways i watch and can appreciate what bloggers do, i cannot help but believe it driven by an unstoppable audacity.

Just because you can write about something, does not always mean you should.

I am reminded of another, off-used quote that goes something like this: Be silent unless what you have to say is better than silence.".


Perhaps silence is better in some cases, but then again, some bloggers may be more effective when silent.

to blog, then or not to blog for now I can survive with out becoming one; no offence, all you bloggers out there.