15 sleeps ...

Well.

I can't help but feel self conscious with this, my first post.
To be honest I thought blogging would be more like an opportunity to commit my internal monologue to "paper". But this is something far more awkward than that. I'm typing and meanwhile my internal monologue is backseat driving - screaming "you can say that - it's lame" or "just get to the point" amongst "be more pithy/witty" "don't self edit " meanwhile I barely type a sentence before I [backspace]

Urgh. I guess it gets easier with practice. I really want to find a voice that is not so self conscious. I guess I'm concerned about who YOU are. Do I know you? Is it better that I don't?

I've spent many an hour trolling the interwebs reading others posts - and they are frank and honest in a way that I casually assumed I could emulate. But looking at this dialogue box there seams to be a pressure to perform I didn't expect. I guess most people started blogging because they want to be famous or at least acknowledged, linked or listened to. I'm not sure that I even want to be read. By anyone. ever. Easy! I hear you say - just uncheck that box on the setup thingy! Yessss, but... then I won't ever be discovered...

Mmmm. Inside every shrinking violet is an underfed ego screaming for attention.

Then why blog? Why not just write in clandestine journals that shall never see the light of day? Well, yes I guess I do want to be read and linked to and be delicious'd. But perhaps only when I am confident of the things I have to say. Perhaps THAT is what this is all about. I want to find my voice - I want to have the opportunity to explore my ideas and interests in a way that can be catalogued and complied. A diary cannot link to other peoples exciting things or even encompass all the exciting things I have planned in my head that I need an excuse to commit to physical existence (even if only in a digital way). And at the end of the day - all that scrapbooking and careful attention one can lavish on the pages of a diary may never be found - chided perhaps by the self as indulgent or one day emotionally shared with a beloved...

But for me - embarking on a way to crystalise all the trillion ideas I have - the simple blog seams to be a way of creating a tether for all my creations, both personal and professional, whimsical and intellectual. So that one day I might be able to stand back and say - yes - that's me.

Pretty big ideas for a blog that may only last until the boy comes home from OS!

Mmmm. In a world of infinite possibilities it is hard not to be paralysed by choice...