Why Blog?

So here's something curious to me; when I consider the blog authors I am personally acquainted with . . . why are they almost all women? I have a rich social network of interesting men-folk. Why aren't they out here being funny, profound, and interesting? Seriously, I know, like, two. Versus the dozens of women?

I know why I blog; I love words. I love speaking them, writing them, hearing them. The poetry of thought and reason is music to my brain. Do my fellow men just not love words like I do?

Are they too busy? Self-concious? Is self-publishing a vanity, so the avoidance is an act of humility?

There are lots of good things to compel our attentions. Too many to ever do them all. So maybe "blogging" as an activity just doesn't rank high enough on the list to compel obedience. And it's not fun enough to do for the sheer joy of it, perhaps?

"May I suggest to you that you write, that you keep journals, that you express your thoughts on paper. Writing is a great discipline. It is a tremendous education effort. It will assist you in various ways, and you will bless the lives of many--now and in the years to come, as you put on paper some of your experiences and some of your musings."

--Gordon B. Hinckley

But I think we (people-we, not men-we) have a duty to record something of our thoughts, our processes. We give our children the opportunity to learn from our history. By recording it, it is available for them.

OK, yes, maybe there is a little vanity, sometimes. But there is also the zeal of joyfully sharing truth. Beauty. I blog, because I am certain there are things I know that are important. By writing them down, by writing down HOW I came to know them, I make them more real. It is a joy to go back and read something I wrote, to feel the resonance in myself that I still feel that way.

" I ask that you join the conversation by participating on the Internet . . . to share the gospel and to explain in simple, clear terms the message of the Restoration. Most of you already know that if you have access to the Internet you can start a blog in minutes and begin sharing what you know to be true."

--Elder M. Russell Ballard

Now, if I can just avoid the vanity trap . . .