Blog!

Look, it's Saturday and not a lot of people are reading this, so I'll do a "Saturday-lite" post. Everyone okay with that?

I have friends out there who read my blog (or, perhaps, who don't) and who don't blog themselves. Some of them blog a little, but not much. Most of the people I know don't blog at all. So, this one is for all you who read my blog and either blog a little or not at all.

It is my strong recommendation that you blog. Okay, maybe not blog. But write. Why?

Well, writing gives you the chance to put down your ideas in a "solid" form. When you write, you are required to pull ideas out of your head, examine those ideas, put them in an explainable order, and then evaluate the explanation. Blogging (or something similar) has the added advantage of allowing others to evaluate the explanation of your ideas and say, "No, that doesn't make sense" or "Yes, you're right on that point."

I am of the opinion that people don't think so much these days. We are pretty happy with the feed we get from the television and the radio and the Internet and we don't really need to evaluate much at all because, happily, someone else is doing it for us. So we pick up the ideas that "feel" best to us and stand our ground on them ... without ever making them our own or even fully understanding them. We are in too many cases, I'm afraid to say, mentally lazy. And then we assume others did their thinking right and absorb their errors without analysis. Sometimes it really makes us look stupid. Most of the time, though, no one else is really evaluating these things, so no one notices that we might look stupid. Besides, the emotional debate is far more popular than the reasoned one.

"Oh," you say, "I can't write. I have no writing skills. I'm not good with words." Two points here. First, the quality of the writing isn't the point. Conversely, writing down your thoughts gives you the chance to improve the quality of your writing (among other benefits). No one writes well who has never written. If "I can't write" was the decision point for anyone who wrote, then no one would start writing. And the second point is like unto the first. I'm not suggesting that you aim to be the next bestseller author. I'm not suggesting you try to be some riveting writer with clever turns of phrases and spellbinding thoughts ... you know, like me. (Kidding ... just kidding.) I'm suggesting that you write for your own benefit.

So ... if you want to stand out, if you want to be a reasonable person, if you want to ... how about this? ... renew your mind, I would recommend you blog. Blogging is free so you don't have a cost problem. It forces you to think to some degree (the more the better). It requires that you explain yourself. It offers your ideas to others who may benefit from them and can also help you critique them. The added benefit of blogging is that you will very possibly have to interact with people who disagree with your ideas. If you use the opportunity properly, it might help you learn to interact with civility and argue with charity. But, hey, that's up to you, isn't it? (Trust me ... I've seen enough bloggers who don't see any requirement to offer civility or charity.) As a benefit to you, then, I say, "Blog!"