Brain Fertilizer

A question oft asked, and attempts to answer oft made.

Personally, I prefer to address that as three interrelated and indivisible questions:
Why did I start blogging? Why do I continue to blog? And what do I get out of blogging?

#1: I started blogging as a way to stay sane while on a long, lonely, boring, and professionally-frustrating deployment in the Indian Ocean.

#2: I continue to blog because I cannot stop. I know, I've tried. But as long as the outlet exists, I will want to use it to express myself.

#3: I have gotten several things out of blogging:

-A non-blogging friend told me he loves the conversations we have about politics and art and society, because he can get such discussion nowhere else. I don't have the callousness to tell him I have better discussions every day in the blogosphere.

-I've made several friends who I fully expect will accompany me until the ends of our lives. I'm going shooting next week with the husband of another blogger. I very nearly considered moving to Denver because of the concentration of interesting people who live and blog there.

-Blogging has cemented my self-image as a writer. I haven't finished a novel yet, but I know I will. Blogging increases my commitment to becoming a paid writer, which increases the chances for my eventual success.

-I have refined my understanding and views of abortion, homosexuality, sexuality, humanity, war, politics, and several other issues almost exclusively through blogging interactions.

-I have discovered a deep and abiding love of old rifles, going so far as to spend more than $2000 in building my personal collection of rifles, all directly due to blogging (and in no small part due to Kim du Toit.)

-I have discovered and refined a talent for punning.

Well, I hope the earlier gains outweigh that last negative...