Menorminating; Riffing From Other Thoughts

The other day, the Mad Snapper posted about blogging and the changes she has observed from her end. Mainly that she felt readership and commenting had dropped, and why was she bothering still to blog herself. Ultimately, the conclusion was that she simply enjoyed it and the connections it has built up.

source; Google Images

I have said it here before, and I will say it again... I blog because I can. See the byline on my header? Blogging was there when I was very much withdrawn from the world; I marvelled at being able to 'visit' people all over the globe and see a snatch of their lives via their blogging posts. It was there, so I took the opportunity, and thus the Wild YAM journey started online because it could... and it continues because it can. I maintain that this journalling methodology has a place in social history. Think of all the documentaries we see these days which rely upon documents kept in archives of many varieties. Many of you reading here are interested in family history, for example. That would be nothing were it not for all the documentation that had been stored. How much easier has it become to access all those data now that they have been digitised?! 

Interestingly, and as so often happens when something worth pondering comes to us, not only Sandra's post but a radio debate came to my notice the very same day about the pros and cons of government legislation on internet use. We all know there is a lot of ... let's call it guff ... out there. The need to understand that the wider net has become the default social space means that we also need to formalise (and to some extent, this is happening) what is acceptable and what is not in an open forum.

I am not going to relate the matters of the debate as such, but what struck me was that none of the participants offered the argument that being online is exactly the same as going out to the town centre. When doing that, we take our personality and social skills with us and interact accordingly. If we see a disturbance or some unpleasant scenes, we can choose to turn a corner and move away from that - or fall into our curiosity and deal with the psychological fallout later. Yes, some parts of each city and town are known for being unsavoury as far as the general standards of society stand, and the majority of us know not to go there. If we do, it comes from informed choice, mainly. We rely on the police to keep a lid on such corners. In accepting that policing society is necessary in the real world, it astounds me that some get all flustered at the thought that policing the online world is some kind of infringement.

We have to engage with the online world precisely as we do in the real world. For some, that can mean getting into places they would rather not be because of all sorts of factors such as inability to navigate, naivete, or just not wanting to own up to being curious. For the majority of us, though, we get around the web in much the same way we get around the world - but without physical effort. 

Of course, there are differences, and a key one of interest to us here is that we can meet so many lovely people with whom we can build a rapport, even if we are never to meet them in the flesh. Pre-internet, we may have chosen to do this via the existing pen friend networks. I believe those of us blogging on these personal sites are of the same group of people who would engage in pen-friending or similar activities. That said, there is no doubt that as younger generations have come along and social media has grown exponentially with much more immediate feedback systems, and the gratification that so many seek becomes instant, blogging now looks old hat. Nearly all the blogs I read, and the readers I have here, are of my own age (60s) or older. The few who are significantly younger that I follow tend to the commercial side of things and are only using blogs as a backup for their YTube activity... and, frankly, they tend not to use Blogger as their platform.

That all said and done, it comes back to 'why do we do it?' I started this out as a diary of the side effects of meno upon my life and personality. It has grown into a daily practice of writing, meditation, exchanging ideas, and sharing of interests that underpins life and would be greatly missed if it were not there. Particularly over the last four or five years, the company I have kept has been almost entirely online, and it has been my solace, my saviour, during some very trying times. It permits me to be the naturally solitary person I am while still being communicative and socially concerned. 

It must also be acknowledged that thanks to this online presence, I have had the privilege and joy of making genuine acquaintances and friendships in 'the real world'. From meeting so many at the BAR event in 2016 to the newest, about which I wrote yesterday. There are others among you with whom I have a 'pen friendship' now due to emailing behind the scenes of our blogs. In a world in which it has become increasingly challenging to reach out in physical terms, these connections hold great value to me. 

There are but a handful of you who have been along for almost the entire journey of this blog. Just as is the case in the real world, the online world is flexible, and people come and go according to what is happening in their own lives. This is just the way of things. To all of you who take the time to read, you always have my thanks, and to those who take the time to comment - warm gratitude. I count not the numbers but the quality of the threads that connect us...