Reading Blogs

I'm not sure why other people read blogs, nor am I sure why some people react to blogs as anathema. I have a certain amount of self-discipline about how I spend my time. So I don't get into a sort of labyrinth of links and rarely act randomly. There are several blogs that I read for a variety of reasons but it all boils down, I think, to two or three reasons: the person is interesting and so is his or her blog; the subject written about is interesting [this is the majority of blogs I follow] and I learn something -- oh, not all the time, but often enough, and the person writes so well I love to see what he or she has come up with. The latter I envy greatly; they have their blog voices which I suspect is their writing voice whatever they're writing. It is graceful, imaginative and insightful. Some blogs I read have fascinating lists of blogs they read and I usually look through them to see if something interesting has been said and click to read that blog. It's a bit lazy of me, especially as I don't keep up my own blog list which seems impolite of me. I'm just technophobe enough to resist making the effort.

A bonus is when someone writes something that rings a bell -- when I get an insight into my own peculiarities. I read such a thought, which was only an incidental part of a longer blog, yesterday -- about biographers and their subjects. I have been chewing on the thought all day. For me reading blogs is like auditing a number of workshops or classes on a large number of subjects, sampling or grazing on other people's intellects. I think of it a bit like taking my 1-a-day vitamins; the recommended daily dose of this and that subject. Plus sometimes I discover something so pleasing it's like being handed a wonderful piece of chocolate. If I want to go deep, I read a book -- and I read a lot of books -- but life is too short to go deeply into all that is interesting. Thanks to all the blogger I read [most of whom don't read my blog, as far as I know.]