Speaking of Blogging: What Do We Want Our Lives to MEAN?

A few random thoughts, before I call this day "a day." It is 11:30 pm, here on the US west coast.

As of late, I have been reading a number of interesting and more "personal" posts here on Steemit, talking about "what we write about" and blogging styles and content.

Most recently, it was a post by @rok-sivante that caught my eye, entitled "The Perils Of Writing, Self-Branding, And Authenticity As An Emerging Steemit Blogger..." It made me realize just how much I have been "trained" by web trends over the years... and how those trends have somehow steered me away from authentic writing.

The whole MySpace, Facebook and social media era has corrupted authenticity for many... not in a direct way, but in the sense that the format doesn't lend itself to creating meaningful content with heart.

Meanwhile, that same group of social media giants also changed the face of blogging. 

Sure, there are still blogs in the Facebook-Instagram-Twitter era... but we were "taught" that if you wanted to be read-- if you wanted success-- in this modern day and age, you had to pick a niche; become an "expert" on something and always stick to your guns in pursuit of building some very specific "Brand You."

It has been a little over eight months since I started blogging here on Steemit, and it is only very recently I have become comfortable again with the notion of personal blogging... simply writing out thoughts and (to some degree informed) opinions about stuff... rather than just writing "articles" that address some topic...

... address "some topic," but loses the essence of the personal aspect.

It's funny, how things change. 

It's what we used to do... write personal blogs, covering a vast range of topics. 

Somehow, that felt self-indulgent and slightly narcissistic, when I started here. Yet... we did the same thing in 2003, on a much "younger" Internet... and nobody characterized it thus, back then. You were either "interesting," or "not interesting." And what you wrote engaged people... or it didn't. Regardless of whether you wrote about car repair one day and your sister's most recent psychological meltdown, the next.

The thing is... these things are what make life... life. And life tends to be interesting, with its stories, weirdness, anecdotes and happenings. More interesting, typically than dedicating ourselves solely to understanding the intricacies of how laser printers work. Or something like that.

So question of the day here is this: What do you want your (writing) life to MEAN? What is the "mark" you want to put on Steemit, as a result of you being here? What do you want to be remembered for? Being Funny? Insightful? Educational? Fascinating? Well-liked? What? Think about it, consider it... are you writing something more than just "filler," here? There's a lot more to this than just earning a few dollars... there's a bigger picture. What IS it, for you? Leave a comment-- share your experiences-- be part of the conversation!

(As usual, all text and images by the author, unless otherwise credited. This is original content, created expressly for Steemit)
Created at 171011 00:20 PDT